Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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One of the biggest challenges facing those who seek to understand U.S. elections is establishing an accurate portrait of the American electorate and the choices made by different kinds of voters. Obtaining accurate data on how people voted is difficult for a number of reasons. Surveys conducted before an election can overstate – or understate […]
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 […]
Young adults tend to be less religious than their elders by several measures; the opposite is rarely true. This pattern holds true across many countries that have different religious, economic and social profiles.
The majority of Europe’s Christians are non-practicing, but they differ from religiously unaffiliated people in their views on God, attitudes toward Muslims and immigrants, and opinions about religion’s role in society.
Question 1: Measuring religious identity How does Pew Research Center measure the religious identity of survey respondents and the religious composition of the U.S.? Answer: Generally, we rely on respondents’ self-identification. A key question we ask in many surveys is: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such […]
Pew Research Center conducted surveys among 24,599 adults (ages 18 and older) across 15 countries in Western Europe. Interviewing was carried out under the direction of GfK Belgium by telephone (both cellphones and landlines) from April to August 2017. The questionnaire administered by survey interviewers was designed by Pew Research Center staff in consultation with […]
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 […]