In assuming all respondents have a religion, the framing of the question produces acquiescence bias that inflates data — by as much as 11 points, according to a number of surveys — in favour of religious affiliation.
In assuming all respondents have a religion, the framing of the question produces acquiescence bias that inflates data — by as much as 11 points, according to a number of surveys — in favour of religious affiliation.
Per the article, without a “no religion” option people will pick the religion of their parents even if they’re now atheist. This inflates the christian numbers.
There already was a “no religion” option, in the last census it was the first checkbox under the question asking what religion you follow.
He does have a point in that the proposed question would have been a more neutral way of determining whether someone is religious, the combination of the implicit assumption in the old question that having a religion is normal and providing an single tick option for selecting common ones probably does make a small percentage say yes that would not in the proposed question. Claims of coercion and human rights abuse though seem a bit over the top and are probably coming more from a dislike of religions (and their political power) rather than a desire for accurate data.
What wasn’t mentioned in the article but is something I would consider likely that the main difference with the proposed question might not be from the question itself but from extra effort of writing out a religion name rather than ticking a box - it’s a small effort but there’d be a lot of people who just want to go through the questions as fast as possible.
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