Religious but Not Devout: The Faith Paradox of Indonesia's Gen Z

In terms of religious identity, the position of young Indonesians on the global stage is striking. A Varkey Foundation survey of 20,000 young people born between 1995 and 2001 across various countries found that 93% of Indonesian respondents considered faith and religion the most important way to achieve happiness, the highest figure of all countries surveyed.

Regional data reinforces this finding. An ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute survey (2024) of 3,081 university students across six ASEAN countries recorded that 95.3% of young Indonesians said religion was important in their lives, making Indonesia the most religious country in Southeast Asia.

At the level of everyday decision-making, an Indikator Politik Indonesia survey shows that 79.3% of young people aged 17 to 21 often consider religious commands or values in the important decisions of their lives.

These figures are consistent. At the level of identity and values, young Indonesians are one of the most religious groups in the world.

But the picture changes when the variable being measured shifts from identity to ritual practice. The national Media and Religious Trends in Indonesia (MERIT) survey, together with the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) at UIN Jakarta (2021), involving 1,214 adult Muslim respondents across 34 provinces, found that Millennials and Gen Z were the two generations with the lowest religiosity, in that order. Research coordinator Iim Halimatus Sa'diyah explained that religiosity in this context refers specifically to "how often or how rarely a person performs religious rituals in their daily life."

That finding was later confirmed by more recent official data from the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The Ministry's 2024 Religiosity Index, a large-scale survey with 4,000 respondents across 34 provinces using face-to-face interviews, explicitly noted that the religiosity index scored lower among the younger generation (Gen Z) than among those above them. The national index that year reached 70.91, up from 69.33 in 2023, but that increase was uneven across generations.

The per-generation breakdown in the Ministry's 2023 Religiosity Index even showed that all generations scored uniformly low on the religious dimension: Gen Z (64.54), Millennials (64.34), Gen X (64.23), and Baby Boomers (64.68). The gaps are thin, but the pattern is consistent because Gen Z does not lead.

In other words, the younger a person is, the less often they pray, read the Qur'an, or routinely undertake voluntary fasting. This trend holds consistently from survey to survey, in both urban and rural areas.

The most recent and most consistent findings come from two surveys focused specifically on the younger generation, released by the Ministry in January 2026: the Student Religiosity Index (IKM, university level) and the Pupil Religiosity Index (IKS, school level) for 2025.

The IKS survey covered Madrasah Aliyah pupils (1,218 respondents, 34 provinces) and pupils of other faiths (1,276 respondents). The IKM survey, meanwhile, covered students from both Islamic and non-Islamic higher-education institutions. Both used the theoretical framework of Glock and Stark (1965), which divides religiosity into five dimensions: ideological, ritualistic, spiritual experience, intellectual, and behavioral.

The results revealed an identical pattern across both age groups. Madrasah Aliyah pupils recorded the highest scores on the ideological and spiritual-experience dimensions, while the ritualistic dimension recorded the lowest score (70.14). Muslim university students (at Islamic institutions) placed the ideological dimension highest (94.15), followed by experience (94.09), behavior (88.88), intellectual (85.68), and the ritualistic dimension once again lowest (82.88).

This pattern is not an anomaly but consistent from high school through university. Young Indonesians are highly confident in their faith (high ideological score) and feel a strong spiritual experience (high experiential score), but are less consistent in performing routine worship (low ritualistic score).

One more layer complicating this picture is conservatism. The MERIT-PPIM survey (2021) found a pattern moving in the opposite direction: the Millennial generation was recorded as the most conservative in religious views, followed by Gen Z, even though both are the generations lowest in ritual practice.

Here a clear separation appears between orthodoxy (the doctrinal truth one believes) and orthopraxy (the practice one carries out). Gen Z tends to hold strict normative views about what is religiously "correct," but does not always realize it in daily worship routines.

The survey also found no significant difference between rural and urban respondents in this pattern. That finding indicates the phenomenon is not merely a product of urbanization but a more fundamental generational characteristic.

Amid the weakness of the ritual dimension, there are two areas where Indonesia's Gen Z is proven to lead in the data.

First, Qur'anic literacy. The 2025 Quality of Religious Life Index for Muslims (Ministry of Religious Affairs and Alvara Strategic Research, 1,208 respondents, 34 provinces) recorded that Gen Z's Qur'anic literacy index reached 56.29, outperforming Millennials (54.06), Gen X (53.97), and Baby Boomers (50.95). The expansion of digital Qur'anic study, recitation content on YouTube, and modern Islamic boarding schools appears to contribute substantially to the younger generation's ability to read the Qur'an.

Second, religious tolerance. Gen Z's tolerance index in the same survey stood at 79.65, higher than Millennials (79.07) and Baby Boomers (78.63). On the specific indicator of rejecting the forced disbandment of other groups' religious activities, Gen Z recorded a score of 80.03, the highest of all generations. This finding aligns with the 2025 Religious Harmony Index (IKUB), which reached 77.89, the highest score since the survey began in 2015.

Both achievements are far from trivial. Amid concerns about polarization and intolerance among young people, the data in fact shows that Indonesia's Gen Z is the most tolerant generation ever measured.

One of the most significant factors distinguishing Gen Z's religiosity from earlier generations is the medium through which religious knowledge is transmitted. The PPIM UIN Jakarta survey (2021) found that 64.66% of Gen Z made social media one of the main sources of their religious knowledge.

The consequences are layered. On one side, digital media broadens access to quality religious content and strengthens Qur'anic literacy. On the other, it creates what PPIM researchers call an echo chamber, a space that reinforces religious views already held, including those of a conservative bent, without the mediation of traditional religious authorities such as kyai or local ustad.

The Ministry's 2025 IKM survey itself explicitly notes that the development of digital technology, including AI, presents its own challenge to the religiosity of the younger generation, especially regarding the quality of religious knowledge sources that are now increasingly accessible without a filter.

Whether young Indonesians are more religious than their parents is a poorly aimed question. The data from 2023 to 2026 shows that what is happening is not simply an increase or decrease in religiosity, but a transformation in the form of religious life.

Indonesia's Gen Z leads on religious identity and values, so they are subjectively religious and consistent in global surveys. They also lead on Qur'anic literacy and interfaith tolerance, both rising and highest across generations. Conversely, they are weak on daily ritual practice, as confirmed by the Ministry in 2023, 2024, and the 2025 IKM/IKS surveys. As for conservatism, their position is ambiguous because their ideological views are strict, but this does not automatically correlate with ritual diligence.

A more accurate understanding is that the religiosity of Indonesia's Gen Z is expressive and selective. They express their faith through identity, views, and digital media, but do not always internalize it as a daily worship routine. This pattern is also found among young Muslims in other global contexts, and it poses a distinct challenge for formal religious institutions that have long defined religiosity primarily through ritual parameters.

What is striking is that over the past three years (2023 to 2025), all of Indonesia's religious harmony and tolerance indices have continued to rise, with Gen Z at the forefront. Perhaps that is this generation's greatest contribution to Indonesia's religious life: not its ritual diligence, but its openness and tolerance.

Sources

Varkey Foundation, Generation Z: Global Citizenship Survey (2017). Surveyed 20,000 respondents aged 15 to 21 across various countries.

ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, Southeast Asian Youth Survey (2024). Involved 3,081 university students across six ASEAN countries.

Indikator Politik Indonesia, Youth Religiosity Survey (2021). Sample of 1,200 respondents, margin of error ±2.9% at a 95% confidence level.

MERIT & PPIM UIN Jakarta, Youth Religiosity Survey: Media and Religious Trends in Indonesia (December 2021). Involved 1,214 Muslim respondents across 34 provinces, margin of error 2.8%.

Ministry of Religious Affairs (Balitbangdiklat), Religiosity Index 2024 (released January 2025). Involved 4,000 respondents across 34 provinces, face-to-face interviews, multistage random sampling.

Ministry of Religious Affairs (Balitbangdiklat), Religiosity Index 2023 (released 2024). Methodology similar to the 2024 survey.

BMBPSDM Ministry of Religious Affairs & BRIN, Pupil Religiosity Index (IKS) Survey 2025 (released January 2026). Madrasah Aliyah pupils: 1,218 respondents across 34 provinces, cluster random sampling, margin of error 2.8%. Cross-faith pupils: 1,276 respondents, margin of error 5% per faith.

BMBPSDM Ministry of Religious Affairs, Student Religiosity Index (IKM) Survey 2025 (released January 2026). Covered students at Islamic and non-Islamic institutions (Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist).

Directorate General of Islamic Community Guidance, Ministry of Religious Affairs & Alvara Strategic Research, Quality of Religious Life Index for Muslims Survey 2025 (released 31 December 2025). Involved 1,208 respondents across 34 provinces, margin of error 2.89%, 95% confidence level.

Ministry of Religious Affairs & P3M University of Indonesia, Religious Harmony Index (IKUB) Evaluation Survey 2025 (released 22 December 2025). The IKUB score reached 77.89, the highest since the survey began in 2015.