The Future of Religions

There is an absolutely fascinating article produced by the Pew Research Center on world religions. It is worth your time, I promise.

According to the Pew Research Center, the religious profile of the world is changing; this change is driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions. Interestingly, it is also driven by people switching faiths. Keep these things in your mind as you read the statistics below.

Over the next four decades, Christianity will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow at a faster rate than any other major religion during that time. If current trends continue, the following can be expected 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.

According to the Pew Research projections, by the year 2050, there will be as many Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) as Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%) in the world. However, the religiously unaffiliated segment of population is projected to shrink as a percentage of the global population. In 2010, censuses and surveys indicate, there were about 1.1 billion atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify themselves by any religious affiliation. By 2050, this unaffiliated segment is projected to exceed 1.2 billion, but, as a percentage of world population, that is a decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century.

From where does population growth come, and how does it affect religions? Pew Research Center states the following regarding growth rate:

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. 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).

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of youth within each religion also has a drastic effect of growth. Pew Research Center stated,

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.

Fascinating statistics regarding religion. Again, the entire article is well worth your time.