Regional Migration and Religious Commitment in the United States

Abstract

Two conceptual models have been proposed to describe changes in religious commitment among regional migrants. The dislocation model predicts that all migrants undergo a decline in commitment after being uprooted from familiar surroundings; the model asserts that commitment among migrants will rise or fall depending on their new region's norms of religious behavior. This paper tests these models through an examination of patterns of church attendance and strength of adherence within national samples of white and black Baptists, and white Lutherans, Methodists and Catholics in the United States. Findings confirm the adaptation model's prediction that religious commitment rises among migrants to regions of higher native commitment, such as the South, and falls among migrants to regions of lower commitment, such as the West. These results suggest that, contrary to expectation, migration may contribute to the persistence of regional religious differences in the United States.