I recently visited with Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, about how Gen Z is making its mark on the political arena. Deckman is the author of “The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy.” We discussed some of the findings of her book and how Generation Z approaches issues around faith and organized religion.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Part I of the interview can be found here. 

Craig Nash:

Your book highlights the gap between Gen Z women and those who identify as LGBTQ+ on one side, and Gen Z men on the other. Could you speak more about this?

Melissa Deckman:

The data that PRRI collected with MTV began this book project for me. For the first time, the data showed that younger Gen Z women were actually outperforming their male counterparts in terms of political engagement levels. As a political scientist who has long studied gender in politics, I thought, “Something is happening here that is very different.”

I wanted to see if that was a fluke of the survey or something that was longer standing. I wanted to know why this was the case and what it might mean.

So, I collected my own data and found that, essentially, Gen Z women were more engaged in politics during the Trump presidency than Gen Z men. This is important because, historically, politics has been the province of men well into the beginning of the 21st century.

Now, women still have always tended to vote more than men in terms of voter turnout. But on other political engagement measures, like contacting a member of Congress, going to a political meeting, making a donation and marching in the streets, men have historically been more likely to do that than women.

In the early 21st century, we saw women catching up to men in this area. But until now, there has never been a situation when women outperformed men.

I think this is due to a couple of things. The Trump victory over Hillary Clinton was shocking to a lot of young women. Coupled with that, shortly after, you had the rise of the #MeToo movement. Those events told Gen Z women that sexism was not a thing of the past, and really fermented their desire to make a more equal society in terms of gender.

But there are also larger social issues going on. We talked about social media’s ability to galvanize young women. We’ve found that young men play more video games, but young women are online.

However, in the culture, over the last couple of decades, there have been attempts to get more young women interested in civic engagement. But there have also been movements to build their self-esteem, getting them to play sports more and encouraging them to be involved in STEM careers.

Together, these have built a “strong sense of political efficacy” among young women. In political science, this phrase essentially means they believe their involvement in the political system will effect change.

On the flip side, there is a lot of data indicating that young men are less likely to be involved. Part of it is that, perhaps, the maturation levels are a little slower for young men.

But there is also a sense, even among young men who lean progressive, that essentially, because so much of political activism is about marginalized groups, they feel like they are not comfortable speaking out about, say, reproductive rights or (for white young men) racism.

They recognize that these groups have been left out of politics, and (for progressive young men) they feel their voices may be less welcome.

And on the political right, of course–you know Senator Josh Hawley wrote a book on manhood–there’s this narrative that the problem with America is that the left has waged a war on masculinity. This left an impression on a lot of conservative men that all they do is bad, so they have kind of decided to tune out in a lot of ways, including in politics.

CN:

You mentioned religion earlier. I know that wasn’t the primary focus of your book, but what do you see as the story we need to know about Gen Z and religion?

MD:

With Generation Z, they are far less religious than their parents or grandparents. Our recent Census on American Religion at PRRI shows that about 38% of that population is religiously unaffiliated. Even among those who express a religious attachment, they are far less likely to go to church or attend synagogue on a regular basis. They aren’t very active in their religious faith.

One thing that is very interesting is that Gen Z women are less religious than Gen Z men. That’s notable because, historically, women have always been more likely to attend church, cook the potlucks, and, essentially run the church. However, we see that Gen Z women are more turned off than young men. Part of that, I think, has to do with disaffiliation, or why people leave a religious affiliation.

Young people, in particular, leave religious affiliation due to the treatment of LGBTQ Americans. They believe that organized religion has not been kind to LGBTQ Americans. Of course, it’s not that simple because there are many progressive denominations and Jewish faith groups that have been more embracing of that community. They have affirmed marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers.

But many Zoomers have looked at how people have been treated, and that’s a turn-off for them because they are passionate about LGBTQ rights.

This is not to say, however, that religion doesn’t impact their views. Especially for Republican young people, there sense of religion plays a bigger role in their lives. But I think the reality is that we see in many organized spaces, congregations are dwindling. In my own Episcopal church, I’m one of the youngest people there and I’m Gen X.

It used to be the case that you’d get married, you’d have kids and come back to church or organized religion. But now, people aren’t getting married, they are putting off having kids or not having them at all. It’s interesting to see where we are heading in the future in terms of organized religion.

It’s not as though organized religions are trying to find the answers to bring more people in. But we’ll have to see. 

Editor’s Note: “The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy” was released earlier this month and can be purchased wherever books are sold.