Well-Being

The PRLS found that Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals, and Historically Black Protestants are similarly high in feeling “a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” at least once a week³⁶ (fig. 10). Of these, Latter-day Saints have the smallest difference between the generations, with 62% of Millennial+ Latter-day Saints feeling “a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” at least once a week compared to 67% of earlier generations. Evangelical Protestants and Historical Black Protestants have identical percentages with 53% of Millennial+ feeling a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being at least once a week compared to 64% of earlier generations.

Latter-day Saints are also among the most likely to say their family lives are “very good” or “excellent.”³⁷ For earlier generations, Jews are higher than Latter-day Saints, and for Millennial+, Hindus are higher than Latter-day Saints (fig. 11).³⁸ Similarly, Latter-day Saint Millennial+ are the most likely to say they are “very happy” with their lives. For earlier generations, Latter-day Saints and Historically Black Protestants have similarly high levels of happiness, with 34% indicating they are “very happy” (fig. 12).

An interesting finding emerged for those who are “Spiritual but not Religious.” Across these three indices—well-being, quality of family life, and general happiness—they have the greatest gap between generations, earlier generations being relatively high on these indices but Millennial+ having some of the lowest levels. For example, 33% of earlier generations of those who are “Spiritual but not Religious” indicate they are very happy with their lives compared to just 10% of those who are Millennial+, the lowest level of any religious group (fig. 12). Similarly, while 61% of earlier generations of “Spiritual but not Religious” say their family lives are “very good” or “excellent,” only 36% of Millennial+ say the same, again the lowest of any religious group (fig. 11). Other research on Gen Z has similarly found lower levels of well-being for those who are spiritual but not religious.³⁹

In addition to the PRLS, we used the Healthy Minds Study⁴⁰ to compare mental health across religions. This is a large national survey of college students conducted every other year. We used the 2021–2022 data because this was the last year student religion was captured. This is one of the largest national datasets that contains a sufficient number of Latter-day Saints (3,521) and also has multiple indicators of well-being. Using these data, we examined the level of risk for depression and anxiety as well as the percentage of those who attempted suicide in the last year. Figures 13–15 display the results, which suggest Latter-day Saints are similar to those of other faiths in their risk for depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. Indeed, the 95% confidence intervals overlap with almost all other religious faiths, with those of no faith having significantly higher percentages than Latter-day Saints and those of most other faiths.