Global religious landscape: Muslims and atheists grew fastest; Christians still largest group
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NEW DELHI: Islam is the fastest-growing religion, followed by Christianity, according to a report based on around 2,700 censuses and surveys.
As per the report by Pew, the share of the muslim population across the globe rose by 1.8 percent to 28.8 percent, with the population growing by 357 million in ten years.
While the global Muslim population grew faster than any other major religious group between 2010 and 2020, it was primarily due to the overall population increase in muslim-majority countries. Muslim shares rose by at least 5 percentage points in Kazakhstan, Benin, and Lebanon, while they declined by at least 5 points in Tanzania and Oman.
Christianity experienced a decline in growth in both Europe and America, yet it remained the world's largest religious group.
The global Christian population grew by 122 million to reach 2.3 billion, but their share of the world's population declined by 1.8 percentage points, dropping to 28.8%. More Christians now live in Africa than in Europe, according to the report, and most countries still have a Christian majority.
Buddhism, a major religious group, was the only one whose share of the global population declined, and it had fewer people in 2020 than it did ten years ago.
by Taboola
by Taboola
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Hindus grew at a rate that was in tandem with the world's overall population. The number of Hindus increased by 126 million over the past decade to reach a total of 1.9 billion.
Jews, who represent around 0.2 percent of the world's population, grew at a steady pace in the past decade.
'Nones' or people with no religious affiliation, also marked a growth in their population, being the only ones apart from muslims to affirm an upward trend.
Collectively, 75.8 percent of the world's population identified themself with a religion as of the year 2020.
What is
religious switching
Religious switching refers to a phenomenon where people who have grown up with a certain religion no longer identify themselves with the said religion. In most countries, a lot of young adults no longer identify themselves with a religion, either because they have grown up without one or because they have switched away from the religion in which they were raised.
The 'religiously unaffiliated' category has had the largest net gain in the past decade.
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