Poll says women, blacks most `spiritually committed' - Nation - Brief Article

National Catholic Reporter, May 3, 2002 by Gill Donovan

Data from a recent Gallup survey suggest that female church members are more "fully spiritually committed" than men, along with African-Americans and those with less education.

The survey asked a series of nine questions concerning "the extent to which faith permeates an individual's life," ranging from daily prayer to the ability to forgive others to deriving "inner peace" from religious faith. The data were collected last fall but were only recently released by Gallup pollsters.

The survey's 729 respondents were asked to rank each of the nine categories on a scale of one to five, with five indicating that a person "strongly agrees" that each factor is a part of his or her life.

In many ways, the survey confirmed what had long been assumed when it comes to religion in America. Twenty-one percent of women ranked all nine categories as very important, compared with 13 percent of men. When education levels were factored in, those with technical or vocational degrees were the most spiritually committed, at 25 percent, while those with graduate degrees were the least committed, at 11 percent.

African-Americans far outpaced other racial groups, with 27 percent registering as fully committed, compared to 16 percent of whites and 11 percent of Hispanics.

The telephone poll of 729 adult members of a church, synagogue or other house of worship has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.