Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
The U.S. government receives largely positive reviews for how it treats its own people. When respondents are asked whether the U.S., China, Saudi Arabia and Iran respect the personal freedoms of their people, the U.S. government achieves the highest ratings, with a median of 70% across the countries surveyed saying the American government respects the […]
Three years ago the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life launched an effort to generate up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the current size and projected growth of the world’s major religious groups. As part of this multi-phase project, the Pew Forum has assembled data on the size and geographic distribution of […]
Conrad Hackett is associate director of research and senior demographer at Pew Research Center. His expertise is in international religious demography, sociology of religion, and how religion relates to characteristics including gender, fertility and education. Hackett received his doctorate from Princeton University’s Department of Sociology and Office of Population Research and was a Postdoctoral Research […]
As young Catholics gather in Brazil, awaiting Pope Francis’ visit in celebration of World Youth Day, an analysis of census data finds that the share of Brazil’s population that identifies as Catholic has been dropping steadily in recent decades. Over the same period, the percentage of Brazilians who belong to Protestant churches has been rising.
Download the Methodology as a PDF (180 KB, 17pages) This study provides comprehensive demographic estimates of the size and distribution of eight major religious groups in the 232 countries and territories for which the United Nations Population Division provides general population estimates as of 2010.16 It includes estimates for Christians, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated, Hindus, […]
Washington, D.C. — The geographic origins of new legal permanent residents in the United States have shifted markedly during the past two decades, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. government data on immigration. A total of 41% of new green card recipients in 1992 came from the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle […]
Washington, D.C. — A new Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe finds that most adherents of the world’s second-largest religion are deeply committed to their faith and want its teachings to shape not only their personal lives but also their societies and politics. In all but a handful of the 39 countries […]
The share of the world’s countries with high or very high restrictions on religion has increased significantly in recent years, as documented in this study and previous Pew Research Center reports.1 Governments and societies around the world have attempted to address the rising tide of restrictions through a variety of initiatives and actions, from encouraging […]