Intergenerational Similarity of Religiosity Over the Family Life Course

Research consistently shows that parents influence children's religiosity. However, few studies acknowledge that there is within-group variation in the intergenerational transmission of religiosity. In this article, we examine whether and how congruence in religiosity between generations changes over the family life course and identifies unique parent-child trajectory classes.

We used eight waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, including 1,084 parent-child dyads beginning in 1971 when the children were adolescents and young adults, followed up to 2005. Growth mixture models (GMM) were tested.

GMM revealed four temporal patterns: stable similar, child weakens, child strengthens, and child returns. Results showed that children who were married were more likely to be members of the child-returns class than members of the stable-similar class.

Results are discussed in terms of the utility of the separation-individuation process and the life-course framework for understanding intergenerational differences and their stability over time.