皮尤研究：Why, U.S. census doesn’t ask, religion(04/12/2023)

 

Why the U.S. census doesn’t ask Americans about their religion

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/12/why-the-us-census-doesnt-ask-americans-about-their-religion/

 

Census forms in the United States don’t ask about religion, but relatively few U.S. adults (25%) know this, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted shortly before census forms were mailed out in 2020.

Indeed, while the Census Bureau has long collected troves of data on Americans’ income, employment, race, ethnicity, housing and other things, the decennial census, held since 1790, has never directly asked Americans about their religion.

That’s not to say the census hasn’t gathered data about Americans’ faith backgrounds through other means from time to time. This analysis answers some basic questions about the often-debated place of religion in the census throughout much of U.S. history.