Less than half of Finns held the same opinion a decade ago. There was meanwhile no change to the number of people who said they had considered leaving the church. Now as well as a decade ago some 12 percent of respondents said they had considered resigning their church membership.
Men aged 25 to 49 in southern Finland are the most eager to leave the state church. An unwillingness to pay church taxes and disagreement with church doctrine were listed as the main reasons for resigning membership.
Some 1,000 people were interviewed for the survey, which was carried out by the pollster Taloustutkimus between May and June. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
