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Michael Lipka

Associate Director, Research

Expertise:News and Information

Michael Lipka is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center, where he studies Americans’ experiences with news and information. Over more than a decade at the Center, he has been a part of several major projects related to the information environment, including our study of news influencers, our five-year lookback at the COVID-19 pandemic, and our surveys on how Americans consume local news and election news. Michael also spent several years writing about trends in religion in the U.S. and globally, contributing to dozens of reports and short reads on various topics. He has a degree in journalism from Boston University and started his career as a sportswriter for The Boston Globe and the Associated Press.

Publications

short readsApr 13, 2017

Religious restrictions vary significantly in the world’s most populous countries

Brazil and Japan were among countries with the lowest levels of religious restrictions in 2015, while Russia and Egypt were among countries with the highest.
short readsApr 7, 2017

Why people with no religion are projected to decline as a share of the world’s population

Though the percentage of religiously “nones” in America has risen, the global share of religiously unaffiliated people is expected to fall in coming decades.
short readsApr 6, 2017

Why Muslims are the world’s fastest-growing religious group

While the world’s population is projected to grow 32% in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 70% – from 1.8 billion in 2015 to nearly 3 billion in 2060.
short readsDec 19, 2016

The education gap between Hindus in India and the West

Hindus are among the least educated of the world’s major religious groups when looked at globally, but this is not true of Hindus everywhere.
short readsOct 26, 2016

Few Americans identify with more than one religion

While roughly one-in-five U.S. adults say they were raised by two parents with different religions, just 6% say they now identify with multiple religions.
short readsOct 3, 2016

Americans are divided over which public bathrooms transgender people should use

Americans are divided about the contentious debate over the rights of transgender people to use public restrooms of their current gender identity.
short readsAug 24, 2016

Why America’s ‘nones’ left religion behind

As the percentage of U.S. adults who do not identify with a religious group grows, we asked these people to explain, in their own words, why they left.
short readsJul 29, 2016

The religious divide on views of technologies that would ‘enhance’ human beings

Americans are wary of the prospect of implanting a computer chip in their brains to improve their mental abilities or adding synthetic blood to their veins to make them stronger and faster. And this is particularly true of those who are highly religious.
short readsJul 18, 2016

Are churches key to solving social problems? Fewer Americans now think so

A majority of U.S. adults still say religious institutions contribute either “a great deal” (19%) or “some” (38%) to solving important social problems, but the combined figure of 58% has fallen significantly in recent years.
short readsJul 14, 2016

Evangelicals increasingly say it’s becoming harder for them in America

A growing share of self-identified “evangelical or born-again” Protestants (41%) says it has become more difficult to be an evangelical Christian in the U.S. in recent years; just 34% answered the question the same way in September 2014.