10 demographic trends shaping the U.S. and the world in 2016
We gathered key facts for this year’s Population Association of America (PAA) meeting.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
Religion
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Israeli Jews from the former Soviet Union are more secular, less religiously observant
After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Israel’s largest wave of Jewish immigrants arrived from Russia and other former Soviet republics. These Soviet Jews brought a secular mindset to Israel, and more than two decades later, Jews who were born in the former Soviet Union continue to be noticeably less religious than Israeli Jews overall.
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A religious gender gap for Christians, but not for Muslims
While Christian women are on the whole more religious than Christian men, Muslim women and Muslim men have similar levels of religious commitment. And when it comes to attendance at worship services, Muslim men are more active than Muslim women.
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Q&A: Why are women generally more religious than men?
A discussion with David Voas of the Department of Social Science at University College London on the gender gap in religion around the world.
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Women generally are more religious than men, but not everywhere
Generally, women are more likely than men to be affiliated with a religious organization; women also pray more, and are more inclined to say religion is “very important” in their lives.
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The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
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5 facts about Israeli Druze, a unique religious and ethnic group
Israeli Druze make up roughly 2% of the country’s population and live mostly in the northern regions of the Galilee, Carmel and the Golan Heights. Their tradition dates back to the 11th century and incorporates elements of Islam, Hinduism and even classical Greek philosophy.
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A closer look at Jewish identity in Israel and the U.S.
Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and strong majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish.
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Unlike U.S., few Jews in Israel identify as Reform or Conservative
The two largest organized Jewish denominations in America – Reform and Conservative Judaism – together have about five times as many U.S. members as the historically much older, more strictly observant Orthodox community. But the Reform and Conservative movements have a far smaller footprint in Israel.
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Exit polls and the evangelical vote: A closer look
As Donald Trump has racked up big wins among self-described “born-again or evangelical” Christians in many of the early primaries, some religious leaders, political analysts and researchers have questioned whether many of these self-described evangelicals actually are evangelical Christians.
