Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Although they have differing perspectives on many political issues, members of Israel’s major religious groups – Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze – place great importance on a few core values, including family relationships, education, career success and helping the needy. Israeli Jews across the religious spectrum say these values are important to them. Although they […]
Countries with the most extensive government restrictions on religion Most countries in the world have some form of government restrictions on religion, but each year a few countries stand out as having particularly extensive restrictions. In 2014, 16 of the 198 countries included in the study had a “very high” level of government restrictions, down […]
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
This report uses data collected by Pew Research Center. To analyze gender differences in religious affiliation, it draws on estimates of religious composition in 192 countries and territories published in the Center’s April 2015 report, “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050.” The estimates are based on data from more than 2,500 censuses […]
Pew Research Center surveys in 63 countries have asked Muslims and Christians about belief in heaven, hell and angels. These data are included in this report as an additional way to examine gender differences in religion. In 47 of the 63 countries (75%), men and women are about equally likely to profess a belief in […]
This appendix provides an overview of the data sources used in the report. It then describes statistical methods used to summarize differences between men and women, including regression analysis methods. Next, it discusses the meaning of the term “gender” in the context of this report. Finally, it concludes with discussion of the thresholds of religious […]
