Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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.
International migration from sub-Saharan African countries to Europe and the U.S. has grown over the past decade. Many who live in sub-Saharan Africa say they would move to another country if they could.
Demographic methodology Migration statistics for this report were drawn from datasets from Europe and the U.S., as well as from global datasets. Europe Europe’s asylum applications from sub-Saharan Africa Number of asylum applications was drawn from Eurostat, Europe’s statistical agency. Annual inflows were calculated from first-time applications minus withdrawn applications within each country of application […]
Overall, fewer than half of respondents across Western Europe regularly take part in civic activities, such as participating in a performing arts group, charitable organization, church or religious group, sports club or any other community group or association. Across many of these activities, there is a clear link between religious observance and civic participation: Highly […]
Spirituality and religion can be defined in many different ways, and the distinction between the two concepts often is muddy. For the purposes of this analysis, spirituality refers to beliefs or feelings about supernatural phenomena, such as life after death, the existence of a soul apart from the human body, and the presence of spiritual […]
Relatively few adults in Western Europe participate in religious activities. For example, across the 15 countries surveyed, a median of 22% say they attend religious services at least once a month. By comparison, regular religious service attendance is much more common in some other parts of the world with large Christian populations, including Africa, Latin […]