Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
From its origin on the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century C.E., Islam has grown into a worldwide religion with more than 1.6 billion adherents – nearly a quarter of the world’s population.1 Today, Muslims live on all inhabited continents and embody a wide range of races, ethnicities and cultures. What beliefs and practices unite […]
A country-by-country analysis of data from more than 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers finds that 84% of adults and children around the globe are religiously affiliated. The study also finds that the median age of two major groups – Muslims (23 years) and Hindus (26) – is younger than the world’s overall population (28), while Jews have the highest median age (36).
A Third of Adults Under 30 Are Unaffiliated; U.S. Protestant Population Dips Below 50% Washington, D.C. — A new, comprehensive demographic study of more than 230 countries and territories conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that more than eight-in-ten people worldwide identify with a religious group. The report […]
Between mid-2009 and mid-2010, religious restrictions rose not only in countries that began the year with high or very high restrictions, such as Indonesia and Nigeria, but also in many countries that began with low or moderate restrictions, such as Switzerland and the United States. The report looks at restrictions due to government actions as well as acts of violence and intimidation by private individuals, organizations and social groups.
Wendy Cadge is an associate professor of sociology at Brandeis University. Her research focuses on religion in the U.S., especially its relationship to immigration, health care and sexuality. She is the author of the books “Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America” and “Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine.” Hien Duc […]
An estimated 405 million people – or about 6% of the world’s total population – are adherents of folk or traditional religions. These are faiths that are closely associated with a particular group of people, ethnicity or tribe. They often have no formal creeds or sacred texts. Examples of folk religions include African traditional religions, […]