Summary

For both men and women, married to non-Zoroastrians, gave less affirmation for the religious practices and beliefs questions but higher affirmation for the symbolic boundaries questions than the respondents who had Zoroastrian marriage partners. The latter affirmed the religious practices and beliefs questions at a higher per cent level and rejected the symbolic boundaries questions at a higher per cent level than the former. Birth in Europe and education in Europe followed similar patterns as marriage to non-Zoroastrians in terms of affirmation for religious practices, beliefs and the symbolic boundaries questions. Iranian Zoroastrians had different affirmation patterns from Parsi Zoroastrians; they were less extreme in their positions of affirming/ rejecting all the religious practices or all the religious beliefs questions: The Iranian Zoroastrians affirmed some of the practices and beliefs and rejected some of them. However, they did affirm all the symbolic boundaries questions, in the 1976 and 2003 surveys, but none of them rejected all the symbolic boundaries questions in any of the surveys.

The people who took part in more than one survey were more affirmative of the Zoroastrian religion questions than the people who had only taken part in the 2003 survey. There have been marked changes in the attitudes to the symbolic boundaries of Zoroastrianism questions whether in the comparison of the original 1976, 1985 and 2003 surveys or in the comparison between the respondents who affirmed in the 2003 survey that they had completed the 1976 and/or 1985 questionnaires or only completed the 2003 questionnaire. Seventy five per cent, 450, of the respondents in the 2003 survey had not taken part in the other two surveys. More respondents especially women who had married non-Zoroastrians, completed the 2003 than the previous surveys. There has been an increase in the response rate to the questions about religious beliefs, with a much lower ‘no response’ rate in 2003, including the people who affirmed that they had completed the 1976 and/ or 1985 questionnaires in the 2003 survey.