Atheists, agnostics and believers without religion. Quantitative analysis of religious unaffiliated in Argentina

Abstract

The 1960 National Population Census registered that 1,6% of the Argentine population was unaffiliated. This proportion reached 18,9% in 2019, consolidating the unaffiliated as the first religious "minority" that even surpasses the evangelicals. The purpose of this article is to analyze some characteristics of the population that declares itself without religious filiation, paying special attention to the diversities that emerge within this group. As the studies of this population have not been frequent in Latin America, this article will set out a quantitative analysis of the segment of the population that presented the largest growth during the last decades. Focusing on the beliefs, practices and attitudes towards relevant topics of the public agenda will allow us to show a complex process that integrates individuals taking distance from religious institutions without losing their religiosity -believers without religion- with situations of no religious belief -atheists and agnostics. We will show that though all individuals within this group share a distance from institutionalized religious practices, they are not a homogeneous segment in terms of socio-demographic characteristics or attitudes towards topics of the public agenda. We will, therefore, identify the diversity of educational, generational, gender and residential situations this segment presents. The data analyzed was taken from Mallimaci, Esquivel, Giménez Béliveau & Irrazábal (2019) second National Survey of Religious Beliefs and Attitudes in Argentina.