Almost 50,000 Americans killed themselves in 2022, up by 2.6 percent from the year before. The Harvard School of Public Health reported in 2020 that women who attend weekly religious services are 68 percent less likely to die from the “deaths of despair”—suicide, drug overdose and alcohol poisoning—than others; religious men are 33 percent less likely. 

Men are nearly 50 percent of the population but makeup almost 80 percent of suicides: the male suicide rate is four times higher than the rate among females.  A new study points out that suicide rates for Asian men have increased 72% and for women 125% over the past 25 years. 

Gallup’s latest data (April 18.) shows that 42% of men in the U.S. ages 18-29 said religion is very important to them, a notable increase from 28% in 2022-2023. Over the same time, young women’s attachment to religion has stayed low, at about 30%.

AI will usher in major changes in the workplace, and millions of people will find themselves to be expendable. More than 126,000 people have been laid off across 393 high tech companies since the start of this year, according to data from tracking website Layoffs.fyi. This also is not good for Americans in general and for men in particular.

Ryan Burge is an expert in analysis of religious developments in the U.S. He recently examined the 2023 Cooperative Election Study with its 25,400 respondents and found that the percentage of non-religious Americans has stopped rising. In 2008, the percentage of Americans who were non-religious in the Cooperative Election Study was 21%. Five years later, it had increased nine points to 30%. But between 2013 and 2018, the nones only rose from 30% to 32%. Just two points in five years. 

Then, there was a significant bump in 2019 to 35%. But the share of the non-religious in the last four years was flat:  2020: 34% 2021: 36% 2022: 35% and 2023: 36%.  And for the youngest group Generation Z the share who were nones in 2020 was 45%. It rose three points to 48% in 2022. Then, it dropped six points to 42% in 2023.

Also, after seeing a slow and steady rise from 28% in 2020 to 31% in 2022 – the Pew poll data from 2023 indicates that the share of nones in the general population dropped to 28% or back to the levels that they recorded in 2020. These two surveys point to the same conclusion: The rise of the nones may be largely over........

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