More than 55 years after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling striking down school-sponsored prayer, Americans continue to fight over the place of religion in public schools. Questions about religion in the classroom no longer make quite as many headlines as they once did, but the issue remains an important battleground in the broader […]
Countries with the most extensive government restrictions on religion Most countries around the world have some form of restrictions on religion – whether it is through laws that limit actions like public preaching or conversion, or actions that can include detaining, displacing or assaulting members of religious groups. A subset of countries, however, has particularly […]
Restrictions on religion increased in 2016 for the second straight year. Nationalist parties and organizations played an increasing role in harassment of religious minorities, especially in Europe.
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 […]
People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other countries.
The European continent today is split in public attitudes toward religion, minorities and social issues such as gay marriage and legal abortion.
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 […]
This appendix provides an overview of the data sources and analytic approaches used in the report. The general population data underlying this study come from 106 countries for religious identity, 106 countries for the importance of religion, 105 countries for prayer frequency and 102 countries for religious service attendance. The countries where religious service attendance […]
Government restrictions by region In 2016, the global median level of government restrictions on religion increased slightly to 2.8 from 2.7 in 2015. The median score rose in three out of five regions (the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region) and remained about the same in two regions (Asia-Pacific and Europe). While […]
Giving a share of one’s income to the church has been a part of European tradition for centuries. Today, several countries continue to collect a “church tax” on behalf of officially recognized religious organizations, in some cases levying the tax on all registered members.
