Do Immigrants Religiously Assimilate? Evidence from Western Europe, the United States and Canada

Phillip Connor, Princeton University

Although a number of studies have examined immigrant assimilation among various life domains, religion has been less evaluated within an assimilation framework. Using immigrant survey data from Western Europe, the United States, and Canada, frequency of immigrant religious attendance is compared to religious attendance levels within the immigrant’s host society. A consistent, positive relationship is found to exist among all data sets including longitudinal data from Canada. Therefore, the results confirm the religious assimilation hypothesis in that immigrants do religiously assimilate to the host society’s religious attendance patterns.