report | Dec 13, 2016

Religion and Education Around the World

Jews are more highly educated than any other major religious group around the world, while Muslims and Hindus tend to have the fewest years of formal schooling. But all religious groups are making gains, particularly among women.

report | Jun 23, 2016

Trends in Global Restrictions on Religion

Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.1 Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restrictions in […]

report | Mar 22, 2016

The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World

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.

report | Nov 13, 2014

Religion in Latin America

Nearly 40% of the world's Catholics live in Latin America, but many people in the region have converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, while some have left organized religion altogether.

report | Apr 4, 2014

Global Religious Diversity

A new report measures religious diversity by the percentage of each country's population in eight categories — Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, the unaffiliated, folk religionists and members of other religions.

report | Feb 10, 2014

Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church

Between 1991 and 2008, the share of Russian adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rose from 31% to 72%, according to data from the International Social Survey Programme. During the same period, the share of Russia’s population that does not identify with any religion dropped from 61% to 18%.

report | Jan 14, 2014

Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High

A third of the 198 countries studied had a high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion in 2012. About three-in-ten countries had a high or very high level of government restrictions on religion, roughly the same as in 2011.

report | Jul 18, 2013

Brazil’s Changing Religious Landscape

As young Catholics gather in Brazil, awaiting Pope Francis' visit in celebration of World Youth Day, an analysis of census data finds that the share of Brazil’s population that identifies as Catholic has been dropping steadily in recent decades. Over the same period, the percentage of Brazilians who belong to Protestant churches has been rising.

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