“Nones” (religiously unaffiliated): territorial dynamics and a socio-demographic profile
The article examines “nones” (the religiously unaffiliated) as an autonomous and internally heterogeneous category of the contemporary religious field that cannot be reduced to atheism, unbelief, or a simple loss of religiosity. The aim of the study is to identify interregional patterns in the spread of nones and to show how socio-demographic predictors operate across different territorial, institutional, and cultural contexts. The empirical basis consists of a secondary analysis of international quantitative data from the World Values Survey, Pew Research Center, and comparable monitoring projects, supplemented by recent national studies and local case studies. The theoretical framework is multi-paradigmatic: it combines secularization theory, post-secular interpretations, and nonreligion and secularity studies (NRSS), making it possible to distinguish between macro- and micro-levels of analysis and to avoid reducing the dynamics of nones to a single explanatory model. The findings show that, at the macro level, externally similar demographic shifts are often described through secularization processes, such as disaffiliation, the weakening of practice, and the intergenerational transmission of non-religiosity, whereas at the micro level, they reveal mixed secular, post-secular, and NRSS configurations: cultural confessional identity, non-denominational belief, spirituality, religious indifference, or limited public legitimacy of unbelief. Socio-demographic factors, such as age, education, urbanisation, gender, family and marital status, reproductive history, and level of well-being, do not function as universal causes, but rather as context-dependent mechanisms in the reproduction of religiosity and non-religiosity. The article concludes that valid comparisons of nones require multidimensional operationalization, a clear distinction between affiliation, belief, and practice, and attention to the demographic, legal, institutional, and cultural regimes of specific societies.
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