Assessing the Validity of Data Synthesis Methods to Estimate Religious Populations

Kramer, Raquel Magidin de; Tighe, Elizabeth; Saxe, Leonard; Parmer, Daniel

doi:10.1111/jssr.12513

Cited by 12 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Rather than a single survey, the AJPP estimate of 7.6 million is based on a statistical analysis of primary data from hundreds of surveys of the US population (Magidin de Kramer et al 2018;Saxe and Tighe 2013;Saxe et al 2021;Tighe et al 2021). Each survey includes a question on religious identity that is consistent with the religion screener question in Jewish-focused surveys.…”

Section: Comparison To Recent Population Estimatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

According to their Numbers: Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans

et al. 2022

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The Pew Research Center’s survey, Jewish Americans in 2020, was designed to provide estimates of the size of the US Jewish population, sociodemographic data on issues such as intermarriage, child-rearing, engagement in Jewish communal life, and a description of American Jewish attitudes. A sophisticated sample design was employed to ensure accurate and generalizable assessments of the population. Because Jews are a small sub-group and the US government does not collect census data on religious groups, creating estimates is a non-trivial task. The focus of this paper is on the validity of Pew’s estimate of 7.5 million US Jewish adults and children, 2.4% of the overall US population. The estimate is an important standalone indicator and is the basis for assessments of current Jewish attitudes and behavior. This paper considers the underlying construct of Jewish identity and its operationalization by Pew and evaluates the convergent validity of Pew’s findings. The efforts to define “who is a Jew” in sociodemographic surveys is described, and a set of methodological challenges to creating estimates are considered. The results of this review indicate that Pew’s criteria for inclusion in the population estimate comports with long-standing views of how to assess the Jewish population. Furthermore, Pew’s estimate of 7.5 million Jewish Americans is consistent with other recent demographic studies of the population. Their conclusions about a growing US Jewish population suggest a new narrative of American Jewish life that reflects the diversity of ways in which Jewish identity is expressed.

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Section: Comparison To Recent Population Estimatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

According to their Numbers: Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans

et al. 2022

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“…The latter point (using data on Jews by religion to estimate Jews of no religion) is important in view of attempts to estimate Jewish populations based in surveys which, as they do, include Jewish as one option in a question on religious identity (Magidin de Kramer et al 2018, Hackett 2014). In the SSRI meta-analysis, Jewish population is assessed at the county level through a logistic regression model that predicts the likelihood an adult identifies as Jewish when asked their religion.…”

Section: Israelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nationalism, Religion, and Archaeology: The Civilizational Populism of Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud

Yilmaz¹,

Morieson²

2022

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This paper examines civilizational populism in Israel and focuses on the largest and most powerful party in Israel since the 1980s, National Liberal Movement (Likud), and its most significant leader of the past twenty years, the populist politician Benjamin Netanyahu. We show how Netanyahu incorporates ‘civilizationism’ into his populist discourses by, first, using the notion that Jewish civilization predates all others in the region to establish the legitimacy of the state of Israel, the hegemony of Jewish culture within Israel, and at times his own political decisions. Second, through his portrayal of the Arab-Muslim world as an antisemitic and barbaric bloc that, far from being a civilization, threatens Western civilization through its barbarism. Equally, this paper shows how Netanyahu argues that Israel is akin to protective wall that protects Western Civilization from the Islamist barbarians who wish to destroy it, and therefore on this basis calls for Europeans and North Americans to support Israel in its battle for civilization and against “the forces of barbarism.”

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“…In comparison, its adoption in sociology has been slower, although the tide appears to be turning, with recent studies using MRP to estimate state-level income mobility (Bloome 2015), state-level attitudes to LGBT employment rights (Dixon, Kane, and DiGrazia 2017), and state-level support for criminal sentencing policies (Duxbury 2021). A few studies have also applied MRP to estimate the size of small religious groups at the national level, such as the proportion of Jews in the United States and Canada (Magidin de Kramer et al 2018;Tighe et al 2010) and the proportion of Muslims, Hindus, and Jews in the United Kingdom (Claassen and Traunmüller 2020). Among these studies, the one by Claassen and Traunmüller (2020) is most ambitious, investigating the prevalence of different religious traditions within subgroups (e.g., young women with a degree) over time.…”

Section: Tracking State-level Religious Trends Using the Gssmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of the Nones across the United States, 1973 to 2018: State-Level Trends of Religious Affiliation and Participation in the General Social Survey

Wiertz¹,

Lim²

2021

SocScience

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Although there has been a fast rise in the share of Americans reporting no religion, it is unclear whether this trend has affected different parts of the country equally. Against this backdrop, we apply dynamic multilevel regression and poststratification (Dynamic MRP) to General Social Survey data over the period 1973 to 2018 to estimate state-level religious trends. We validate our estimates against external benchmarks, finding that they perform well in terms of predictive accuracy. Substantively, we find steeper increases in the share of religious nones in states that had more nones to begin with. Moreover, whereas state-level increases in the share of religious nones are strongly linked to declines in occasional church attendance and moderate religious identification, the associations with trends in regular attendance and strong identification are much weaker. States have thus not only diverged in their share of religious nones but also experienced different degrees of religious polarization.

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Assessing the Validity of Data Synthesis Methods to Estimate Religious Populations

Cited by 12 publications

References 31 publications

According to their Numbers: Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans

According to their Numbers: Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans

Nationalism, Religion, and Archaeology: The Civilizational Populism of Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud

The Rise of the Nones across the United States, 1973 to 2018: State-Level Trends of Religious Affiliation and Participation in the General Social Survey

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