Religious ties shape how Black Americans define family, Pew study finds

(RNS) — Black Christians are more likely than religiously unaffiliated to consider nonrelatives a part of their families. 

(Photo by Tony Meyers/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Fiona Murphy

February 25, 2026

(RNS) — Black Americans are more likely to consider people not related to them by blood or marriage part of their families, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. Religious affiliation, Pew found, is a key factor in forming these alternative family networks.

Pew’s 93-page report, based on a survey of 4,271 Black adults and 2,555 adults of other races, examines how Black Americans define and experience family, and how people support one another. Overall, 77% of Black Americans said their family includes at least one nonrelative, compared with 63% of adults of other races.

Kiana Cox, the senior researcher of the survey, noted the research examined the trope of Black Americans’ referring to people who are not relatives as cousins. “It’s sort of tongue in cheek,” she said. “We use the term ‘play cousin,’ because that’s the term that some Black people might be familiar with.”

Cox said one of the key findings is the extent to which relatives and nonrelatives serve as sources of financial and emotional support, as well as how widespread the extended family networks are.

“77% of Black Americans say their family includes someone who is not a relative” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

Respondents who said they are religious were more likely to include a nonrelative in their family. About 60% of Black Christians reported having more than one nonrelative they consider family, compared with 53% of religiously unaffiliated Black adults, while 62% of Black adults who practice other religions said so.

Cox said Pew was limited to broad religious categories, Christian, non-Christian and unaffiliated, because of the small sample sizes of Black non-Christians. Some 70% of Black adults identify as Christian. “Because of sample size, we can’t break apart those other religions any further,” Cox said. “So we have a three-way break: Christian, non-Christian and unaffiliated.”

The survey also found that 72% of Black adults whose family included a nonrelated member said the nonrelative shared their religious or spiritual beliefs, as opposed to 56% of adults of other races. “Religion is a basis of connection, or a basis of definition, for these nonrelative family members because they share religious and spiritual beliefs,” Cox said. 

While the study, which was conducted June 16-25, 2025, did not directly examine how faith traditions shape racial identity, Cox said previous Pew research, including Pew’s “Faith Among Black Americans” survey from 2021, shows that race is central to how many Black Americans understand religion.

“From our previous work on race and religion, we know that ideas about race are crucial to how Black people think about faith,” Cox said. “Opposing racism is an essential part of faith for many Black people. …While I can’t make a direct connection between these findings and those studies, racial identity, opposing racism and racial equity help form the foundation of faith for Black people.”

Among adults who have at least one nonrelative they consider family, Black adults were more likely than adults of other races to say those family members share one of their identities, including religion (85% vs. 75%), are longtime family friends (83% vs. 70%) and share their religious or spiritual beliefs (72% vs. 56%).

People attend the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc.’s annual session, Sept. 11, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (RNS photo/Kit Doyle)

“I think our data does suggest that religion is one of the bases that people are using to define who gets included, or at least who is in their close network,” Cox said.

Religious affiliation was also associated with the size of these extended family networks. About 60% of Black Christians said they have more than one nonrelative they consider family, compared with 53% of religiously unaffiliated Black adults. 

The report includes a brief history of Black family networks, citing the role of extended kinship systems rooted in African traditions, in which family terms were applied broadly within the community. It also notes the effects of the transatlantic slave trade, which forcibly separated Black families and led to the formation of kinship bonds among enslaved people on plantations.

Though other Americans have open family structures, Cox said Black families’ relationships with their extra members tend to be closer. “They are unique in terms of the breadth of them and the closeness of them, and that those networks do have connections to African kinship systems,” Cox said.

Cox said the report highlighted the connection many Black Americans feel to their community at large, even those outside of nonfamily relative systems. Again, Christian respondents proved more likely, at 60%, to consider Black people in the U.S. to be their brothers and sisters. Slightly more than half of religiously unaffiliated Black adults said the same.

“That definition of brothers and sisters and feeling a responsibility to look out for one another that extends to Black people in the country, and not just the family unit,” said Cox.