Pew Research has found that 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.
The thinktank forecasts that Christians will continue to make up the largest religious group over the next four decades, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. According to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, there were 4,054,990,000 people of all ages living in Asia and the Pacific in 2010, of which 24% are Muslims. There were 341,020,000 people of all ages living in the Middle East and North Africa during the same period, of which more than nine in 10 were Muslims (93%). If current demographic trends continue, Pew says that by 2050 the number of Muslims around the world (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) will nearly equal the number of Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history.
Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level of 2.1, which is the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population*.
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 34% of Muslims were younger than 15. This bulging youth population is among the reasons that Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population. The projections also find that by 2050 - if current trends continue - India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
The predictions are part of global religious trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research Center. The research, report and an interactive website, www.globalreligiousfutures.org, are part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, a multi-year effort jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation to analyse religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
The new report on the demographic projections explores expected changes from 2010 to 2050 in the size and geographic distribution of eight major religious groups: Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, adherents of folk religions, adherents of other religions and the unaffiliated.
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.
In addition to making projections at the global level, the report projects religious change in nearly 200 countries and territories and looks at how religious composition is likely to change from 2010 to 2050 in six different regions of the world.
Data from the report can be explored online and custom visualisations can be created at www.globalreligiousfutures.org.
The full report, The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, is available on the website of the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project.
posted from Bloggeroid
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| Source: Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, Worldwide Muslim Population 2010 |
The thinktank forecasts that Christians will continue to make up the largest religious group over the next four decades, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. According to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, there were 4,054,990,000 people of all ages living in Asia and the Pacific in 2010, of which 24% are Muslims. There were 341,020,000 people of all ages living in the Middle East and North Africa during the same period, of which more than nine in 10 were Muslims (93%). If current demographic trends continue, Pew says that by 2050 the number of Muslims around the world (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) will nearly equal the number of Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history.
Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level of 2.1, which is the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population*. 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 34% of Muslims were younger than 15. This bulging youth population is among the reasons that Muslims are projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population. The projections also find that by 2050 - if current trends continue - India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
The predictions are part of global religious trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research Center. The research, report and an interactive website, www.globalreligiousfutures.org, are part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, a multi-year effort jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation to analyse religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
The new report on the demographic projections explores expected changes from 2010 to 2050 in the size and geographic distribution of eight major religious groups: Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, adherents of folk religions, adherents of other religions and the unaffiliated.
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.
In addition to making projections at the global level, the report projects religious change in nearly 200 countries and territories and looks at how religious composition is likely to change from 2010 to 2050 in six different regions of the world.
Data from the report can be explored online and custom visualisations can be created at www.globalreligiousfutures.org.
The full report, The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, is available on the website of the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life project.
*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, click here.