Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

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Short-form data and analysis from Pew Research Center writers and social scientists. To view all our reports and publications, visit our main Publications page.

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  • short reads
    Barack Obama and Xi Jinping

    6 facts about how Americans and Chinese see each other

    Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour of the United States comes at a time of many tensions between the two nations. Our surveys capture American public opinion toward China, and Chinese public opinion toward the U.S.

  • short reads
    Strong majority among former Soviet Union Jews oppose religious involvement in public life

    Israeli Jews from the former Soviet Union are more secular, less religiously observant

    After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Israel’s largest wave of Jewish immigrants arrived from Russia and other former Soviet republics. These Soviet Jews brought a secular mindset to Israel, and more than two decades later, Jews who were born in the former Soviet Union continue to be noticeably less religious than Israeli Jews overall.

  • short reads
    Paris attacks, LGBT rights are the most common reasons social media users changed their profile pictures

    Changing a social media profile picture is one way to express support or solidarity

    In the wake of attacks in Brussels and in Lahore, Pakistan, some social media users are changing their profile pictures to express solidarity with victims and the people of these countries. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become a common way for Americans to get news, but they also can provide a way for […]

  • short reads

    Views of NATO and its role are mixed in U.S., other member nations

    Foreign policy and national security have been key elements of the debate for both the Republican and Democratic parties in this year’s U.S. presidential campaign. GOP front-runner Donald Trump recently added a twist when he suggested in a Washington Post interview that, while NATO is “a good thing to have,” changes are needed because the […]

  • short reads

    Historic population losses continue across Puerto Rico

    Population losses in Puerto Rico have accelerated in recent years, affecting every corner of the island and continuing the largest outmigration in more than 50 years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released county-level Census Bureau data. Among Puerto Rico’s counties that saw the largest population losses between 2010 and 2015 was […]

  • short reads
    Gender gap in worship service attendance differs between Muslim-majority and Christian-majority countries

    A religious gender gap for Christians, but not for Muslims

    While Christian women are on the whole more religious than Christian men, Muslim women and Muslim men have similar levels of religious commitment. And when it comes to attendance at worship services, Muslim men are more active than Muslim women.

  • short reads
    Focus group participants' reasons for learning

    Incentives – and pressures – for U.S. workers in a ‘knowledge economy’

    As automation looms and more and more jobs are being shaped to accommodate the tech-saturated “knowledge economy,” 63% of full- and part-time workers say they have taken steps in the past 12 months to upgrade their skills and knowledge. That is one of several key findings from a Pew Research Center survey conducted last fall […]