Parent–Adult Child Religious Discordance: Consequences for Intergenerational Solidarity Across Several Decades

Abstract

This article focused on the relationship between parent–child religious discordance (affiliation, intensity, and attendance) in early adulthood and children’s perceived affectual and associational solidarity with their parents across 20 years. The data derived from eight waves of the Longitudinal Study of Generations between 1971 and 2005. We selected 635 young adult children whose mothers and/or fathers also reported their religious orientations in 1971 and then constructed mother–child dyads (n = 584) and father–child dyads (n = 475). Results showed that religious affiliation discordance between parents and children negatively and consistently lowered children’s affectual and associational solidarity with parents over several decades regardless of parents’ gender. However, intergenerational discordance in religious intensity and religious attendance showed no such association. These findings indicate that discontinuity in denominational identification is more disruptive to intergenerational relations than discontinuity in religious strength and practice.