Religious activity may fluctuate over the course of a person's lifetime, depending on a number of personal and situational variables. In general, the rates of public and private religious activity are somewhat higher among women than men. This gender difference in religious activity is found within every denomination. Church members who are most likely to have lower levels of religious activity include adults married outside the faith, adults who are divorced or have never married, adults with less than a high school education working in blue-collar jobs, and adults without a religious background.
Age also has an important effect on religious activity.
It then rises to 60 percent at age forty, falls to a low of 50 percent during the mid-fifties, and rises again to 60 percent by age seventy. Research has shown that religious socialization in the family is an important predictor of the likelihood that a person will experience a period of inactivity during adolescence or young adulthood. This finding accurately describes the experience of Latter-day Saints. Church members from homes in which both parents are LDS and attend church frequently, pray, read the scriptures, and discuss religion with their children are much less likely to have a period of inactivity than those from homes in which one or neither parent attends church regularly nor practices religion in the home. About 75 percent of lifelong Latter-day Saints experience a period of inactivity lasting a year or more.