Buddhism’s Recent Decline in East Asia
Buddhism is the only major religion whose global population shrank between 2010 and 2020. Learn why it declined in East Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea.
Only one-in-ten Chinese adults formally identify with a religion, but surveys indicate that religion plays a much bigger role in China when the definition is widened to include questions on spirituality, customs and traditional beliefs.
This report relies primarily on data from seven waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (between 2010-21) and four waves of data from the China Family Panel Studies (between 2012-18) to discuss China’s religious landscape and how it has changed in recent years. Additionally, some analysis uses the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (between 2012-14), World […]