Male teens now outnumber females in church youth groups: Barna data

Bucking a decades-long trend of disproportionate female participation, male teenagers now outnumber their female counterparts in church youth group attendance among self-identified Christian teens in the U.S., according to a new report from Barna and the Christian youth ministry Christ In Youth.

The report, “Reimagining Ministry for Gen Alpha,” was based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. teenagers, ages 13 to 18, conducted Feb. 14 to 17.

Some 57% of self-identified Christian teens in the U.S. said they attended a youth group in the last three months, including 63% of males, compared with 52% of females.

The study also found that younger teenagers, those aged 13 to 15, were 5% more likely to attend a youth group than those aged 16 to 18 (60% vs. 55%). While more than half of all Christian teenagers across racial and ethnic blocs reported attending a youth group in the last three months, attendance was highest among whites at 60%. Hispanics followed in second place at 58%, followed by Asian and black teenagers at 53% and 51%, respectively.

While more females have historically attended church in the U.S., data from Barna show that men now out-attend women by the widest margin ever recorded in the last 25 years: 43% compared with 36% in 2025.

Teenage females were also found to be more likely than their male counterparts to identify as religiously unaffiliated, and the latest youth group findings “point in the same direction,” according to Barna.

Earlier this year, a Gallup report found that the share of young adult men who report attending a religious service at least monthly reached its highest point in more than a decade. The report found that 42% of men ages 18 to 29 surveyed in 2024 to 2025 said religion is “very important” to them. This was a sharp rise from 2022 to 2023 data, when just 28% of men said religion was “very important.”

And Gallup researchers found that political identity may be driving the shift.

“Since 2022–2023, attendance has risen seven points among young Republican men, eight points among young Republican women and three points among young Democratic men. Only young Democratic women show little change,” researchers said.

“Longer-term, however, attendance among young Republican men has been trending upward since 2018–2019, while young Democratic men’s attendance has generally declined. The recent increase in young Republican women’s attendance contrasts with no meaningful change among young Democratic women.”

The report noted that 48% of young adult men in the 2024 to 2025 data identified as or leaned Republican, while 41% identified as or leaned Democrat. Among young adult women, 60% identified as or leaned Democratic, while 27% identified as or leaned Republican.

“Given the relatively large proportion of young men who are Republican, the upward trends in their religiosity have a significant impact on overall trends among young men,” Gallup said.

“Even though young Republican women have also become more religiously engaged, they represent a relatively small proportion of all young women,” researchers explained. “As a result, the impact of changes in religiosity among young Republican women on young women as a whole is limited.”