Who are the nones? People with no religion tend to be pretty average folk

I recently examined data about the characteristics of people with no religion compared to those who have religions of various types.

There is need to do this because official studies frequently focus more on the different religious denominations rather than thinking systematically about the growing proportion of the population that has no religion - 37 per cent in the 2011 Scottish census. For instance, the informative source I consulted (see below) summarises its findings for well known religious groups but not for those with no religion. So here I offer a quick summary.

Those who report to surveys and censuses that they have no religion tend to be not that much different from the average citizen,

They have about average employment rates and are spread around a typical selection of occupations.

They have less wealth than average but this may be because they tend to be younger. They live across all types of neighbourhoods in the same way as the general population.

Slightly healthier and slightly more inclined to drink

Some statistically significant but small differences emerge with respect to health. The non-religious are slightly less likely than average to be obese, to have cardio-vascular disease or diabetes and are more likely to meet the daily recommended levels of exercise.

However, like Roman Catholics, 28 per cent of them smoked, compared to the national average of 25.

The non-religious are also more likely to exceed daily recommended alcoholic intake limits at 41 per cent compared to the national Scottish average of 39.

One thing the biggest differences that mark out the non-religious is that they are much more likely to go to the cinema. 60% of them do compared to 54% overall and 44% for Church of Scotland adherents.

For more information visit http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00420970.pdf
The summary of the report is available at p37-8 with no mention of the near 40% with no religion.