Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Most people in Western Europe say they believe in God. But in Europe today, believing in God does not necessarily mean belief in the God of the Bible. Indeed, even though all 15 countries surveyed are historically Christian, and nearly all of them still have Christian majorities, fewer respondents say they believe in God “as […]
Adults under 40 are less likely to be religiously affiliated Perhaps the simplest way to measure attachment to religion among people of all ages is to look at the percentage of people who identify with a religious group. Pew Research Center surveys around the world routinely ask: “What is your present religion, if any?” Respondents […]
The analysis of 2016 sources found reports of religiously motivated harassment – whether perpetrated by governments or social groups – in the vast majority of the world’s countries (187, up from 169 in 2015). This marks the biggest number of countries where harassment was observed against religious groups since Pew Research Center began analyzing restrictions […]
L’Europe de l’Ouest, berceau du protestantisme et cœur du catholicisme durant la plus grande partie de son histoire, est maintenant l’une des régions les moins religieuses dans le monde. Bien que la vaste majorité des adultes soient baptisés, nombre d’entre eux ne se décrivent pas comme étant chrétiens. Certains disent s’être peu à peu éloignés […]
Relatively few adults in Western Europe participate in religious activities. For example, across the 15 countries surveyed, a median of 22% say they attend religious services at least once a month. By comparison, regular religious service attendance is much more common in some other parts of the world with large Christian populations, including Africa, Latin […]
Europe’s religious landscape is changing: The Christian share of the population is declining while the religiously unaffiliated population is increasing. In addition, Muslim populations in Western European countries continue to grow in both absolute and percentage terms due to immigration, relatively high fertility rates, and a relatively young population. Jewish populations, meanwhile, appear to be […]
The wide collection of cross-national Pew Research Center surveys analyzed in this report on age gaps in religious commitment can also be used to look at the ways religious observance varies among all adults – defined as people ages 18 and older – in different parts of the world. The four standard measures of religious […]