A high proportion of churchgoers in Australia have university degrees, and it is increasing according to the National Church Life Survey (NCLS) results. The 2021 NCLS survey result was 44 per cent of churchgoers with bachelor’s degrees or higher. NCLS establishes that churchgoers are more highly educated than the general community. But when thinking about Christians in general, there is a large difference that this article will explore.
NCLS cites figures from earlier surveys to support their finding that churchgoers consistently have more uni degrees than the general population. As the general population’s rate of graduating from university steadily increases, the church-going group stays ahead.
• 2016: Census general population 25%, churchgoers 37%.
• 2011: Census general population 21%, churchgoers 33%.
• 2006: Census general population 18%, churchgoers 27%.
The Financial Review reported earlier this year, “Nearly half of under-25s are studying at uni.” Citing productivity commission research, Education reporter Judith Hare wrote that “nationally 47.8 per cent of people aged under 25 are enrolled in a bachelor’s degree. In addition, a Victorian OnTrack study found that of the 26,735 Year 12 completers it surveyed, 54 per cent were enrolled at university, 12 per cent were enrolled at TAFE, and 8 per cent had taken up apprenticeships or training.”
But suppose one was tempted to take comfort in having a highly educated church-going population as a valuable retort to any accusation that Christians are ignorant. In that case, one would also have to acknowledge is also true that many of the “nones,” a growing proportion of the Australian population, are highly-educated as well. (“Nones” are the Australians who indicated they have no religious beliefs.) This showed up in an Australian Bureau of Statistics report from 2011. The rate of people reporting as “nones” increases steadily from those with school education to Post-graduate degrees.
Those with school education only reported as “nones” at a much higher rate if they were in a younger age group, compared to their older cohorts. But those with post-graduate degrees’ rate of reporting as “nones” was consistent across age groups. That may mean that reporting as a “none” has been equalising across educational groups, and the increase in the school education-only group reporting as a “none” might explain the increasing popularity of being a “none.”
Eric Love, who maintains a detailed page of statistics about census Christians at geomiss.mappage.net.au, has uncovered a confronting pattern of statistics – that “census” Christians don’t reflect the same pattern of having elevated education levels as churchgoers.
“Education level is an interesting one,” he writes. “I can’t compare religion and education directly16, but comparing the proportion of census Christians per SA4 [Statistical Area level 4 – for example, a capital city] with the proportion with university degrees shows a strong negative correlation, decreasing since 201617. This page (ABS) using 2011 data, confirms that degree holders were less likely to be Christian than the less educated. This would be partly mitigated if we broke it down by age groups. This chart shows the proportion of degree holders and Christians in each age group.”
The page he points to has the ABS chart we used above.
Summarising the NCLS data on churchgoers and education and the ABS material, Love concludes, “Putting this together, we find that the less educated are more likely to be nominal Christians while the more educated are more likely to be active Christians or No Religion.”
Taking it further, Love notes, “Comparing the Christian percentage with the SEIFA [Socio-economic indices for areas] Index of Advantage and Disadvantage for each SA3 [statistical regions with 30,000 to 130,000 people], the correlation was -22% – census Christians clearly tend not to live in rich areas. If we change to the Index of Disadvantage (which isn’t that different), this moderates to -11%, reflecting higher Christian numbers in low-wealth rural areas than rough metropolitan ones. The negative relationship got much stronger from 2011 to 2016 but reversed that by 2021. Rich areas discarded Christian identification in 2011-16; poor areas followed in 2016-21.”
Against the well-known pattern of decline in the number of people identifying as Christians, we see that this occurred in more affluent areas first. But also that census Christians do not live in wealthy neighbourhoods.
Career-long earnings remain higher for people with degrees – $1m more for median earners, according to 2016 data. (A discussion of “degree inflation” questions whether more and more people attending university is worth it. But in this article we’ll assume the uni degrees remain valuable.)
Census Christians, the 43.9 per cent of Australians who identify as Christians on the census form, vastly outnumber the 21 per cent of Australians who are in churches once a month, according to the NCLS Australian Community Survey.
What has been established is that one key difference between church-going Christians and those who don’t attend but identify as Christian is education level.
This could be geographical. Rates of people with higher education varies by district. This site enables a comparison between a region and the general population. 32.8 per cent of people in Greater Melbourne had a degree or higher degree compared to 26.3 percent in Australia as a whole. Our churchgoers and their churches could be concentrated in areas where people have degrees.
It may relate to class. The educational attainment gap between non church going census Christians and those in church points to this.
It could relate to how churches function. Does the teaching style or socialisation practises within a church mean certain people feel unwelcome, or it’s not a place for them?
Census Christians will include those who might be positive about being invited back to church, and likely also those who have had a difficult experience at church, are are hurt believers.
How do we make sense of a concentration of church-going Christians with uni degrees with the parable of the great banquet, where the rich fail to turn up and the beggars in the streets take their place? Or the words of Paul? “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians1: 26,–27, NIV)
Image Quan Nguyen/wikimedia
Here’s a factor that might be considered; discipleship during life stages. Christian university groups play a significant role in shaping and discipling young adults in being committed Christians for life. Much of what I covered at University Groups, Mid Year conferences and National Training Events equipped smaller churches who weren’t able to provide that level of training. The small amount of more progressive, socially focused christian groups might have done a similar thing. And compared to similar groups overseas, both programs are far more academically vigorous.
Meanwhile, similar programs for TAFE have struggled to get a foot hold in Certificate level education since 2010. Searching online, there were programs in the past, but largely now stopped, or moved to private christian colleges.