Islam Fastest-Growing In World, Christianity 2nd, 'Nones' 3rd Largest: Pew Report
New Delhi:
Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, with the Muslim population growing by 347 million in ten years between 2010 and 2020, a report by the Pew Research Center said. According to the report, Christianity stood second, followed by 'nones' (people with no religious affiliation). Hindus stood fourth in the world population.
The Pew's 'Global Religious Landscape' report, published on June 9, reveals how population growth has influenced the global religious landscape. It mainly focuses on seven categories: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, people who belong to other religions, and those who are religiously unaffiliated.
The report mentioned that the rise in the number of Muslims is more than all other religions combined, and the shares of the Muslim population globally rose by 1.8 percentage points to 25.6 per cent.
Islam is followed by Christianity - even though it is the world's biggest religious group.
The number of Christians rose by 122 million, reaching 2.3 billion. However, as a share of the world's population, they fell 1.8 percentage points to 28.8 per cent - placing second to Islam, the report said. This is primarily due to the growth among the non-Christian population and those who left the religion. Most former Christians no longer identify with any religion, but some now identify with a different religion, the survey mentioned.
The decline in Christianity was witnessed in Europe, North America, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand, it added.
'Nones' took the place of the third-largest growing group, with the number of religiously unaffiliated people rising by 270 million to 1.9 billion. The share of 'nones' in the world population climbed nearly a full percentage point to 24.2 per cent.
Hindus, according to the report, grew at about the same rate as the world's overall population. The religion stood fourth in the fastest-growing list. The report said that the number of Hindus rose by 126 million, reaching 1.2 billion. As a proportion of the global population, Hindus held steady at 14.9 per cent - a slight drop as compared to 2010 (15 per cent).
The Jewish population grew by around six per cent in the 10 years - from 14 million to 15 million people, the report said. As of 2020, 45.9 per cent of Jews lived in Israel - the highest Jewish population in any country. This was followed by 41.2 per cent in North America.
According to the report, Buddhist were the only major religious group that had fewer people in 2020 than a decade earlier. The number of Buddhists in the world dropped by 0.8 per cent.
The age profile
The study mentions that in 2020, Muslims had the highest proportion of children in their population (33 per cent of all Muslims worldwide are under 15). The youthfulness of Muslims is tied to the fact that nearly four-in-ten of the world's Muslims live in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region - places with relatively young populations, it said.
Jews and Buddhists have the highest proportion of older adults - 36 per cent in each group are ages 50 and older.
Christians have a large presence in many regions, from the most youthful in sub-Saharan Africa to the least in Europe. Hindus, on the other hand, have a larger population between the ages of 15 to 49 (55 per cent), followed by youngsters of 33 per cent.
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Hindustan Times
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