The Religiously Unaffiliated Are Set to Become the West's Largest Group by 2040

The Question

For most of Western history, to be born was to be born into a faith. Religion set the calendar, the ceremonies, the moral vocabulary, and the default answer on any form that asked. That default is dissolving. In one country after another, a growing share of people — and an even larger share of the young — tick the box marked "none," describing themselves not as believers or as fierce atheists, but simply as unattached to any organised religion.

This group, often called the "nones," is not a single creed. It spans convinced atheists, casual agnostics, and people who feel spiritual but reject institutions. What unites them is the absence of a religious label, and their numbers are climbing steeply across Europe, North America, Australia, and beyond. In several countries they are already the largest single group. The question is whether that becomes the norm across most of the West by 2040, and what it means for societies built, for centuries, around shared religious institutions.

What the Evidence Shows

The trend lines are unusually clear. In the United States, the share of adults claiming no religion has climbed from single digits a generation ago to roughly three in ten, rivalling any single faith tradition. Across much of Western Europe, the unaffiliated are already the plurality or majority: in countries like the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and parts of Scandinavia, "no religion" is the most common response, and in Australia and New Zealand the pattern is the same. Formal religious affiliation, attendance, and belief have all fallen together.

The clearest signal is generational. In survey after survey, each younger cohort is markedly less religiously affiliated than the one before, and people rarely become dramatically more religious as they age. That means the current young "nones" carry their lack of affiliation forward with them, while older, more religious generations gradually pass on. The arithmetic of generational replacement points in a single direction across the developed West.

There are real counter-currents worth naming. Immigration brings younger, more religious populations into secularising societies, and some faith communities have high birth rates that sustain their numbers. Globally, in fact, the religiously affiliated are growing faster than the unaffiliated because of demography in the developing world. But within the West specifically, these forces have so far slowed rather than reversed the rise of the nones, who continue to expand as a share of the population.

Why This Is Happening

Transmission is breaking, just as with language. Religion has always passed from parents to children, but fewer parents are practising, and those who do often fail to hold their children's belief into adulthood. When a generation grows up without regular religious practice at home, few adopt it later on their own. The chain that carried faith across centuries is thinning link by link.

Prosperity and security reduce the pull. Across history and across countries, religiosity tends to fall as societies grow wealthier, healthier, and more secure. When the state provides education, healthcare, and a safety net, and when life is long and predictable, the existential demand that religion once met eases. The West's affluence quietly erodes one of faith's oldest functions.

Institutions have lost authority. Scandals, social change, and a broader distrust of large institutions have hit organised religion hard, especially among the young. Many people retain private spiritual feelings but want nothing to do with churches or hierarchies. The result is not always disbelief but disaffiliation — a walking away from the institution while faith itself becomes a personal, optional matter.

What Could Happen

What Can We Do

A society reorganising around the absence of shared religion faces real questions about meaning, community, and morality — questions that fall to individuals and communities to answer thoughtfully.

Build community that faith once provided. Religious institutions long supplied belonging, ritual, and mutual support. As they recede, secular societies need to consciously create clubs, networks, and gatherings that meet the same human needs. Community does not appear on its own; a more unaffiliated world has to build it deliberately.

Take meaning and ethics seriously without a creed. The decline of religion does not erase the questions it addressed about purpose, death, and how to live well. Philosophy, secular ethics, and open reflection can carry that weight, but only if people engage with them rather than drift. A life without religion still benefits from a considered set of values.

Preserve what is worth keeping from religious heritage. Music, architecture, festivals, and traditions carry cultural value beyond belief. A secularising society can honour and maintain this inheritance rather than let it decay. Losing faith need not mean losing the beauty and continuity that faith helped create.

Protect pluralism and mutual respect. As the unaffiliated grow, the believers who remain deserve the same freedom and dignity the secular now enjoy. A healthy future is one where the religious and non-religious coexist without either dominating. Tolerance in both directions is what keeps a diverse society at peace.