So, more and more the world will break down into only TWO classes of people: The Terrified and the Educated. And out of the terrified will be where the Terrorists tend to come from out of the poorest of the poor and most physically and mentally abused children worldwide.
Begin quote from:
- The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of ... of all 6.9 billion people on Earth. Islam was...
Religion & Public Life
The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050
Why Muslims Are Rising Fastest and the Unaffiliated Are Shrinking as a Share of the World’s Population
The religious profile of the world is
rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and
the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as
well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades,
Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow
faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by
2050 …
- The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
- Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
- The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.
- In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.
- India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
- In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.
- Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.
These are among the global religious
trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research
Center. The projections take into account the current size and
geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences,
fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in
conversion.
As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31%) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth. Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23% of the global population.
If
current demographic trends continue, however, Islam will nearly catch
up by the middle of the 21st century. Between 2010 and 2050, the world’s
total population is expected to rise to 9.3 billion, a 35% increase.1
Over that same period, Muslims – a comparatively youthful population
with high fertility rates – are projected to increase by 73%. The number
of Christians also is projected to rise, but more slowly, at about the
same rate (35%) as the global population overall.
As a result, according to the Pew Research
projections, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8
billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%),
possibly for the first time in history.2
With the exception of Buddhists, all
of the world’s major religious groups are poised for at least some
growth in absolute numbers in the coming decades. The global Buddhist
population is expected to be fairly stable because of low fertility
rates and aging populations in countries such as China, Thailand and
Japan.
Worldwide, the Hindu population is
projected to rise by 34%, from a little over 1 billion to nearly 1.4
billion, roughly keeping pace with overall population growth. Jews, the
smallest religious group for which separate projections were made, are
expected to grow 16%, from a little less than 14 million in 2010 to 16.1
million worldwide in 2050.
Adherents of various folk religions –
including African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native
American religions and Australian aboriginal religions – are projected
to increase by 11%, from 405 million to nearly 450 million.
And all other religions combined – an
umbrella category that includes Baha’is, Jains, Sikhs, Taoists and many
smaller faiths – are projected to increase 6%, from a total of
approximately 58 million to more than 61 million over the same period.3
While growing in absolute size,
however, folk religions, Judaism and “other religions” (the umbrella
category considered as a whole) will not keep pace with global
population growth. Each of these groups is projected to make up a
smaller percentage of the world’s population in 2050 than it did in
2010.4
Similarly, the religiously
unaffiliated population is projected to shrink as a percentage of the
global population, even though it will increase in absolute number. In
2010, censuses and surveys indicate, there were about 1.1 billion
atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular
religion.5
By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion.
But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious
affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the
middle of this century.
At the same time, however, the
unaffiliated are expected to continue to increase as a share of the
population in much of Europe and North America. In the United States,
for example, the unaffiliated are projected to grow from an estimated
16% of the total population (including children) in 2010 to 26% in 2050.
As the example of the unaffiliated shows,
there will be vivid geographic differences in patterns of religious
growth in the coming decades. One of the main determinants of that
future growth is where each group is geographically concentrated today.
Religions with many adherents in developing countries – where birth
rates are high, and infant mortality rates generally have been falling –
are likely to grow quickly. Much of the worldwide growth of Islam and
Christianity, for example, is expected to take place in sub-Saharan
Africa. Today’s religiously unaffiliated population, by contrast, is
heavily concentrated in places with low fertility and aging populations,
such as Europe, North America, China and Japan.
Globally, Muslims have the highest
fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above
replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a
stable population.6
Christians are second, at 2.7 children per woman. Hindu fertility (2.4)
is similar to the global average (2.5). Worldwide, Jewish fertility
(2.3 children per woman) also is above replacement level. All the other
groups have fertility levels too low to sustain their populations: folk
religions (1.8 children per woman), other religions (1.7), the
unaffiliated (1.7) and Buddhists (1.6).
Another
important determinant of growth is the current age distribution of each
religious group – whether its adherents are predominantly young, with
their prime childbearing years still ahead, or older and largely past
their childbearing years.
In 2010, more than a quarter of the
world’s total population (27%) was under the age of 15. But an even
higher percentage of Muslims (34%) and Hindus (30%) were younger than
15, while the share of Christians under 15 matched the global average
(27%). These bulging youth populations are among the reasons that
Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population
and that Hindus and Christians are projected to roughly keep pace with
worldwide population growth.
All the remaining groups have
smaller-than-average youth populations, and many of them have
disproportionately large numbers of adherents over the age of 59. For
example, 11% of the world’s population was at least 60 years old in
2010. But fully 20% of Jews around the world are 60 or older, as are 15%
of Buddhists, 14% of Christians, 14% of adherents of other religions
(taken as a whole), 13% of the unaffiliated and 11% of adherents of folk
religions. By contrast, just 7% of Muslims and 8% of Hindus are in this
oldest age category.
In addition to fertility rates and age
distributions, religious switching is likely to play a role in the
growth of religious groups. But conversion patterns are complex and
varied. In some countries, it is fairly common for adults to leave their
childhood religion and switch to another faith. In others, changes in
religious identity are rare, legally cumbersome or even illegal.
The Pew Research Center projections
attempt to incorporate patterns in religious switching in 70 countries
where surveys provide information on the number of people who say they
no longer belong to the religious group in which they were raised. In
the projection model, all directions of switching are possible, and they
may be partially offsetting. In the United States, for example, surveys
find that some people who were raised with no religious affiliation
have switched to become Christians, while some who grew up as Christians
have switched to become unaffiliated. These types of patterns are
projected to continue as future generations come of age. (For more
details on how and where switching was modeled, see the Methodology. For alternative growth scenarios involving either switching in additional countries or no switching at all, see Chapter 1.)
Over the coming decades, Christians are
expected to experience the largest net losses from switching. Globally,
about 40 million people are projected to switch into Christianity, while
106 million are projected to leave, with most joining the ranks of the
religiously unaffiliated. (See chart above.)
All
told, the unaffiliated are expected to add 97 million people and lose
36 million via switching, for a net gain of 61 million by 2050. Modest
net gains through switching also are expected for Muslims (3 million),
adherents of folk religions (3 million) and members of other religions
(2 million). Jews are expected to experience a net loss of about 300,000
people due to switching, while Buddhists are expected to lose nearly 3
million.
International migration is another factor
that will influence the projected size of religious groups in various
regions and countries.
Forecasting future migration patterns is
difficult, because migration is often linked to government policies and
international events that can change quickly. For this reason, many
population projections do not include migration in their models. But
working with researchers at the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, the Pew Research Center has
developed an innovative way of using data on past migration patterns to
estimate the religious composition of migrant flows in the decades
ahead. (For details on how the projections were made, see Chapter 1.)
The impact of migration can be seen in the
examples shown in the graph at the right, which compares projection
scenarios with and without migration in the regions where it will have
the greatest impact. In Europe, for instance, the Muslim share of the
population is expected to increase from 5.9% in 2010 to 10.2% in 2050
when migration is taken into account along with other demographic
factors that are driving population change, such as fertility rates and
age. Without migration, the Muslim share of Europe’s population in 2050
is projected to be nearly two percentage points lower (8.4%). In North
America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double
in the decades ahead, from 0.7% in 2010 to 1.3% in 2050, when migration
is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share
of the region’s population would remain about the same (0.8%).
In the Middle East and North Africa, the
continued migration of Christians into the six Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates) is expected to offset the exodus of Christians
from other countries in the region.7
If migration were not factored into the 2050 projections, the estimated
Christian share of the region’s population would drop below 3%. With
migration factored in, however, the estimated Christian share is
expected to be just above 3% (down from nearly 4% in 2010).
Beyond the Year 2050
This
report describes how the global religious landscape would change if
current demographic trends continue. With each passing year, however,
there is a chance that unforeseen events – war, famine, disease,
technological innovation, political upheaval, etc. – will alter the size
of one religious group or another. Owing to the difficulty of peering
more than a few decades into the future, the projections stop at 2050.
Readers may wonder, though, what would
happen to the population trajectories highlighted in this report if they
were projected into the second half of this century. Given the rapid
projected increase from 2010 to 2050 in the Muslim share of the world’s
population, would Muslims eventually outnumber Christians? And, if so,
when?
The answer depends on continuation of the
trends described in Chapter 1. If the main projection model is extended
beyond 2050, the Muslim share of the world’s population would equal the
Christian share, at roughly 32% each, around 2070. After that, the
number of Muslims would exceed the number of Christians, but both
religious groups would grow, roughly in tandem, as shown in the graph
above. By the year 2100, about 1% more of the world’s population would
be Muslim (35%) than Christian (34%).
The projected growth of Muslims and
Christians would be driven largely by the continued expansion of
Africa’s population. Due to the heavy concentration of Christians and
Muslims in this high-fertility region, both groups would increase as a
percentage of the global population. Combined, the world’s two largest
religious groups would make up more than two-thirds of the global
population in 2100 (69%), up from 61% in 2050 and 55% in 2010.
It bears repeating, however, that many
factors could alter these trajectories. For example, if a large share of
China’s population were to switch to Christianity (as discussed in
this sidebar),
that shift alone could bolster Christianity’s current position as the
world’s most populous religion. Or if disaffiliation were to become
common in countries with large Muslim populations – as it is now in some
countries with large Christian populations – that trend could slow or
reverse the increase in Muslim numbers.
Regional and Country-Level Projections
In addition to making projections at the
global level, this report projects religious change in 198 countries and
territories with at least 100,000 people as of 2010, covering 99.9% of
the world’s population. Population estimates for an additional 36
countries and territories are included in regional and global totals
throughout the report. The report also divides the world into six major
regions and looks at how each region’s religious composition is likely
to change from 2010 to 2050, assuming that current patterns in migration
and other demographic trends continue.8
Due largely to high fertility, sub-Saharan Africa
is projected to experience the fastest overall growth, rising from 12%
of the world’s population in 2010 to about 20% in 2050. The Middle East-North Africa
region also is expected to grow faster than the world as a whole,
edging up from 5% of the global population in 2010 to 6% in 2050.
Ongoing growth in both regions will fuel global increases in the Muslim
population. In addition, sub-Saharan Africa’s Christian population is
expected to double, from 517 million in 2010 to 1.1 billion in 2050. The
share of the world’s Christians living in sub-Saharan Africa will rise
from 24% in 2010 to 38% in 2050.
Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific
region is expected to have a declining share of the world’s population
(53% in 2050, compared with 59% in 2010). This will be reflected in the
slower growth of religions heavily concentrated in the region, including
Buddhism and Chinese folk religions, as well as slower growth of Asia’s
large unaffiliated population. One exception is Hindus, who are
overwhelmingly concentrated in India, where the population is younger
and fertility rates are higher than in China or Japan. As previously
mentioned, Hindus are projected to roughly keep pace with global
population growth. India’s large Muslim population also is poised for
rapid growth. Although India will continue to have a Hindu majority, by
2050 it is projected to have the world’s largest Muslim population,
surpassing Indonesia.
The remaining geographic regions also will
contain declining shares of the world’s population: Europe is projected
to go from 11% to 8%, Latin American and the Caribbean from 9% to 8%,
and North America from 5% to a little less than 5%.
Europe is the only region
where the total population is projected to decline. Europe’s Christian
population is expected to shrink by about 100 million people in the
coming decades, dropping from 553 million to 454 million. While
Christians will remain the largest religious group in Europe, they are
projected to drop from three-quarters of the population to less than
two-thirds. By 2050, nearly a quarter of Europeans (23%) are expected to
have no religious affiliation, and Muslims will make up about 10% of
the region’s population, up from 5.9% in 2010. Over the same period, the
number of Hindus in Europe is expected to roughly double, from a little
under 1.4 million (0.2% of Europe’s population) to nearly 2.7 million
(o.4%), mainly as a result of immigration. Buddhists appear headed for
similarly rapid growth in Europe – a projected rise from 1.4 million to
2.5 million.
In North America,
Muslims and followers of “other religions” are the fastest-growing
religious groups. In the United States, for example, the share of the
population that belongs to other religions is projected to more than
double – albeit from a very small base – rising from 0.6% to 1.5%.9
Christians are projected to decline from 78% of the U.S. population in
2010 to 66% in 2050, while the unaffiliated are expected to rise from
16% to 26%. And by the middle of the 21st century, the United States is
likely to have more Muslims (2.1% of the population) than people who
identify with the Jewish faith (1.4%).10
In Latin America and the Caribbean,
Christians will remain the largest religious group, making up 89% of
the population in 2050, down slightly from 90% in 2010. Latin America’s
religiously unaffiliated population is projected to grow both in
absolute number and percentage terms, rising from about 45 million
people (8%) in 2010 to 65 million (9%) in 2050.11
Changing Religious Majorities
Several countries are projected to have a
different religious majority in 2050 than they did in 2010. The number
of countries with Christian majorities is expected to decline from 159
to 151, as Christians are projected to drop below 50% of the population
in Australia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, the Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.
Muslims in 2050 are expected to make up
more than 50% of the population in 51 countries, two more than in 2010,
as both the Republic of Macedonia and Nigeria are projected to gain
Muslim majorities. But Nigeria also will continue to have a very large
Christian population. Indeed, Nigeria is projected to have the
third-largest Christian population in the world by 2050, after the
United States and Brazil.
As of 2050, the largest religious group in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands is expected to be the unaffiliated.
About These Projections
While many people have offered predictions
about the future of religion, these are the first formal demographic
projections using data on age, fertility, mortality, migration and
religious switching for multiple religious groups around the world.
Demographers at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., and the
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in
Laxenburg, Austria, gathered the input data from more than 2,500
censuses, surveys and population registers, an effort that has taken six
years and will continue.
The projections cover eight major groups:
Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, adherents of folk
religions, adherents of other religions and the unaffiliated (see
Appendix C: Defining the Religious Groups). Because censuses and surveys
in many countries do not provide information on religious subgroups –
such as Sunni and Shia Muslims or Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox
Christians – the projections are for each religious group as a whole.
Data on subgroups of the unaffiliated are also unavailable in many
countries. As a result, separate projections are not possible for
atheists or agnostics.
The projection model was developed in
collaboration with researchers in the Age and Cohort Change Project at
IIASA, who are world leaders in population projections methodology. The
model uses an advanced version of the cohort-component method typically
employed by demographers to forecast population growth. It starts with a
population of baseline age groups, or cohorts, divided by sex and
religion. Each cohort is projected into the future by adding likely
gains (immigrants and people switching in) and by subtracting likely
losses (deaths, emigrants and people switching out) year by year. The
youngest cohorts, ages 0-4, are created by applying age-specific
fertility rates to each female cohort in the childbearing years (ages
15-49), with children inheriting the mother’s religion. For more
details, see the Methodology.12
In the process of gathering input data
and developing the projection model, the Pew Research Center previously
published reports on the current size and geographic distribution of
major religious groups, including Muslims (2009), Christians (2011) and several other faiths
(2012). An initial set of projections for one religious group, Muslims,
was published in 2011, although it did not attempt to take religious
switching into account.
Some social theorists have suggested that
as countries develop economically, more of their inhabitants will move
away from religious affiliation. While that has been the general
experience in some parts of the world, notably Europe, it is not yet
clear whether it is a universal pattern.13 In any case, the projections in this report are not based on theories about economic development leading to secularization.
Rather, the projections extend the
recently observed patterns of religious switching in all countries for
which sufficient data are available (70 countries in all). In addition,
the projections reflect the United Nations’ expectation that in
countries with high fertility rates, those rates gradually will decline
in coming decades, alongside rising female educational attainment. And
the projections assume that people gradually are living longer in most
countries. These and other key input data and assumptions are explained
in detail in Chapter 1 and the Methodology (Appendix A).
Since religious change has never
previously been projected on this scale, some cautionary words are in
order. Population projections are estimates built on current population
data and assumptions about demographic trends, such as declining birth
rates and rising life expectancies in particular countries. The
projections are what will occur if the current data are accurate and
current trends continue. But many events – scientific discoveries, armed
conflicts, social movements, political upheavals, natural disasters and
changing economic conditions, to name just a few – can shift
demographic trends in unforeseen ways. That is why the projections are
limited to a 40-year time frame, and subsequent chapters of this report
try to give a sense of how much difference it could make if key
assumptions were different.
For example, China’s 1.3 billion people
(as of 2010) loom very large in global trends. At present, about 5% of
China’s population is estimated to be Christian, and more than 50% is
religiously unaffiliated. Because reliable figures on religious
switching in China are not available, the projections do not contain any
forecast for conversions in the world’s most populous country. But if
Christianity expands in China in the decades to come – as some experts
predict – then by 2050, the global numbers of Christians may be higher
than projected, and the decline in the percentage of the world’s
population that is religiously unaffiliated may be even sharper. (For
more details on the possible impact of religious switching in China, see
Chapter 1.)
Finally, readers should bear in mind that
within every major religious group, there is a spectrum of belief and
practice. The projections are based on the number of people who self-identify
with each religious group, regardless of their level of observance.
What it means to be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or a
member of any other faith may vary from person to person, country to
country, and decade to decade.
Acknowledgements
These population projections were produced
by the Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global
Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its
impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious
Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John
Templeton Foundation.
Many staff members in the Pew Research
Center’s Religion & Public Life project contributed to this effort.
Conrad Hackett was the lead researcher and primary author of this
report. Alan Cooperman served as lead editor. Anne Shi and Juan Carlos
Esparza Ochoa made major contributions to data collection, storage and
analysis. Bill Webster created the graphics and Stacy Rosenberg and Ben
Wormald oversaw development of the interactive data presentations and
the Global Religious Futures website. Sandra Stencel, Greg Smith,
Michael Lipka and Aleksandra Sandstrom provided editorial assistance.
The report was number-checked by Shi, Esparza Ochoa, Claire Gecewicz and
Angelina Theodorou.
Several researchers in the Age and Cohort
Change project of the International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis collaborated on the projections, providing invaluable expertise
on advanced (“multistate”) population modeling and standardization of
input data. Marcin Stonawski wrote the cutting-edge software used for
these projections and led the collection and analysis of European data.
Michaela Potančoková standardized the fertility data. Vegard Skirbekk
coordinated IIASA’s research contributions. Additionally, Guy Abel at
the Vienna Institute of Demography helped construct the country-level
migration flow data used in the projections.
Over the past six years, a number of
former Pew Research Center staff members also played critical roles in
producing the population projections. Phillip Connor prepared the
migration input data, wrote descriptions of migration results and
methods, and helped write the chapters on each religious group and
geographic region. Noble Kuriakose was involved in nearly all stages of
the project and helped draft the chapter on demographic factors and the
Methodology. Former intern Joseph Naylor helped design maps, and David
McClendon, another former intern, helped research global patterns of
religious switching. The original concept for this study was developed
by Luis Lugo, former director of the Pew Research Center’s Religion
& Public Life project, with assistance from former senior researcher
Brian J. Grim and visiting senior research fellow Mehtab Karim.
Others at the Pew Research Center who
provided editorial or research guidance include Michael Dimock, Claudia
Deane, Scott Keeter, Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn. Communications
support was provided by Katherine Ritchey and Russ Oates.
We also received very helpful advice and
feedback on portions of this report from Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt
Scholar in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute; Roger
Finke, Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives and
Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies, The
Pennsylvania State University; Carl Haub, Senior Demographer, Population
Reference Bureau; Todd Johnson, Associate Professor of Global
Christianity and Director of the Center for the Study of Global
Christianity, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary; Ariela Keysar,
Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for
the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College;
Chaeyoon Lim, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin-Madison; Arland Thornton, Research Professor in the Population
Studies Center, University of Michigan; Jenny Trinitapoli, Assistant
Professor of Sociology, Demography and Religious Studies, The
Pennsylvania State University; David Voas, Professor of Population
Studies and Acting Director of the Institute for Social and Economic
Research, University of Essex; Robert Wuthnow, Andlinger Professor of
Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion,
Princeton University; and Fenggang Yang, Professor of Sociology and
Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society, Purdue
University.
While the data collection and projection
methodology were guided by our consultants and advisers, the Pew
Research Center is solely responsible for the interpretation and
reporting of the data.
Roadmap to the Report
The remainder of this report details the
projections from multiple angles. The first chapter looks at the
demographic factors that shape the projections, including sections on
fertility rates, life expectancy, age structure, religious switching and
migration. The next chapter details projections by religious group,
with separate sections on Christians, Muslims, the religiously
unaffiliated, Hindus, Buddhists, adherents of folk or traditional
religions, members of “other religions” (consolidated into a single
group) and Jews. A final chapter takes a region-by-region look at the
projections, including separate sections on Asia and the Pacific,
Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North
Africa, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.
- This overall projection (9.3 billion in 2050) matches the “medium variant” forecast in the United Nations Population Division’s World Population Prospects, 2010 revision. A recent update from the United Nations has a somewhat higher estimate, 9.55 billion. The U.N. does not make projections for religious groups. ↩
- Christianity began about six centuries before Islam, a head start that helps explain why some scholars believe that, in the past, Christians always have been more numerous than Muslims around the world. The Pew Research Center consulted several scholars on this historical question. Todd M. Johnson, co-editor of the “Atlas of Global Christianity,” and Houssain Kettani, author of independent estimates of the growth of Islam, contend that the number of Christians always has exceeded the number of Muslims. But some other experts, including Oxford University demographer David Coleman and Columbia University historian Richard W. Bulliet, say it is possible that Muslims may have outnumbered Christians globally sometime between 1000 and 1600 C.E., as Muslim populations expanded and Christian populations were decimated by the Black Death in Europe. All of the experts acknowledged that estimates of the size of religious groups in the Middle Ages are fraught with uncertainty. ↩
- Although some faiths in the “other religions” category have millions of adherents around the world, censuses and surveys in many countries do not measure them specifically. Because of the scarcity of census and survey data, Pew Research has not projected the size of individual religions within this category. Estimates of the global size of these faiths generally come from other sources, such as the religious groups themselves. By far the largest of these groups is Sikhs, who numbered about 25 million in 2010, according to the World Religion Database. Estimates from other sources on the size of additional groups in this category can be found in the sidebar in Chapter 2. ↩
- Jews make up such a small share of the global population, however, that the projected decline is not visible when percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Jews comprised 0.20% of the world’s population in 2010 and are projected to comprise 0.17% in 2050. Both figures are rounded to 0.2% (two-tenths of 1%) in the charts and tables in this report. ↩
- In many countries, censuses and demographic surveys do not enumerate atheists and agnostics as distinct populations, so it is not possible to reliably estimate the global size of these subgroups within the broad category of the religiously unaffiliated. ↩
- The standard measure of fertility in this report is the Total Fertility Rate. In countries with low infant and child mortality rates, a Total Fertility Rate close to 2.1 children per woman is sufficient for each generation to replace itself. Replacement-level fertility is higher in countries with elevated mortality rates. For more information on how fertility shapes population growth, see Chapter 1. ↩
- Most immigrants come to GCC countries as temporary workers. These projections model a dynamic migrant population in GCC countries, in which some migrants leave as others arrive and, over time, there are net gains in the size of the foreign-born population within each GCC country. ↩
- The assumptions and trends used in these projections are discussed in Chapter 1 and in the Methodology section (Appendix A). ↩
- As noted above, the “other religions” category includes many groups – such as Baha’is, Sikhs and Wiccans – that cannot be projected separately due to lack of data on their fertility rates, age structure and other demographic characteristics. ↩
- People who identify their religion as Jewish in surveys are projected to decline from an estimated 1.8% of the U.S. population in 2010 to 1.4% in 2050. These figures, however, do not include “cultural” or “ethnic” Jews – people who have Jewish ancestry but do not describe their present religion as Jewish. A 2013 Pew Research survey found that more than one-in-five U.S. Jewish adults (22%) say they are atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, but consider themselves Jewish aside from religion and have at least one Jewish parent. For the purposes of the religious group projections in this report, people who identify their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular are categorized as unaffiliated. To avoid double-counting, they are not included in the Jewish population. If the projected Jewish numbers were expanded to include cultural or ethnic Jews, it is possible that the size of the more broadly defined Jewish population might be greater than the projected number of U.S. Muslims in 2050. ↩
- The global projections are for Christians as a whole and do not attempt to calculate separate growth trajectories for subgroups such as Catholics and Protestants. However, other studies by the Pew Research Center show that Catholics have been declining and Protestants have been rising as a percentage of the population in some Latin American countries. See the Pew Research Center’s 2014 report “Religion in Latin America.” ↩
- How accurate have population projections using the cohort-component method been in the past? An overview of how previous projections for general populations compare with actual population trends is provided in the National Research Council’s 2000 book “Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World’s Population,” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9828/beyond-six-billion-forecasting-the-worlds- population. ↩
- For example, there is little evidence of economic development leading to religious disaffiliation in Muslim-majority countries. In Hindu-majority India, religious affiliation remains nearly universal despite rapid social and economic change. And in China, religious affiliation – though very difficult to measure – may be rising along with economic development. ↩
Interactive Database: Explore Religion and Religious Change Around the World
Sortable Tables: Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2050
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