More young men report that they attend churches or other houses of worship at least monthly, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday, one of several indicators that group of Americans may be bucking broader trends as religiosity among most people in the United States remains at historic lows.
Forty percent of men ages 18 to 29 attend religious services monthly or more often — around a seven percentage point increase from 2022-2023, and the highest percentage who have reported doing so since 2012-2013, the Gallup report found. Gallup surveyed 26,601 American adults on this question from 2024 to 2025, including 1,905 men younger than 30.
The study appears to reflect a trend observed by some religious leaders: Pockets of young Americans, especially men, are joining faith communities and driving increased attendance at churches and religious gatherings. Although women have historically been more religious than men, male and female attendance at houses of worship for people under 30 is now statistically tied, according to Gallup.
“We’re sensing, based on the data, a change in the religious environment in this country,” said Gallup senior scientist Frank Newport, an author of the report.
Not all recent surveys support the idea of a religious revival among young Americans. A December report by Pew Research Center found few shifts in church attendance or other measures of religiosity among young adults in recent years, although they echo Gallup’s findings that young women have become less religious over the past decade.
A different portion of the new Gallup study, which surveyed 4,015 adults, found that 42 percent of young men say religion is important in their lives, greater than the 29 percent of young women who said the same, and a sharp increase from the 28 percent of young men who said religion is important in 2022-2023.
The proportion of young men who identify with a religious faith also has gradually increased for around nine years from a low point of 57 percent, reaching 63 percent in 2024-2025, according to a poll of 27,616 adults.
Older Americans remain more religious than their younger peers, but for respondents older than 29, all three indicators of religiosity that Gallup studies — whether respondents identify with a religion, attend religious services and find religion important — are sitting at or around their lowest points since 2000-2001, according to the firm.
Newport said young men appeared to be bucking a decades-long trend of women being more religious than men in the U.S. Among older age groups, more women than men still report a religious identity and regular religious attendance.
“Among this young group, that gender gap has dissolved,” Newport said.
In its December report, Pew also observed that the gap in religiousness between young men and women had narrowed, but attributed that finding to declining religiousness in American women — not an increased religiousness in men.
The increase in religiosity among young Americans is also concentrated around Republicans, according to Gallup. The proportion of Republican men and women who regularly attend religious events has increased by around 10 percentage points in the past five years. Democratic men’s attendance has generally declined in that time, while Democratic women did not see a statistically significant change.
Newport said more research would be needed to see whether the report’s findings become a long-term trend. But he added that there has been consensus among pollsters in recent years that religious decline in the country has stabilized.
“Headline after headline for a decade or two now has been: ‘America is becoming less religious,’” Newport said. “And now I think we’re seeing the consensus across organizations is that’s leveled off.”
“The degree to which that continues … or we see more of an uptick across all age groups, is something we need to continue to measure going forward,” he added.
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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