The Generational Collapse of American Religion

An Age–Period–Cohort Story Told Through the GSS

Buckle up, readers, because we’re about to do a deep dive into an important but difficult-to-grasp concept in the social sciences. It’s called age-period-cohort (APC) effects. Let me start by showing you a simple graph. All I’m doing here is comparing attendance in the first year of the General Social Survey (1972) to its most recently released data fro…