Around the World, Many People Are Leaving Their Childhood Religions
In many places surveyed, 20% or more of all adults have left their childhood religious group. Christianity and Buddhism have had especially large losses.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Size & Demographic Characteristics of Religious Groups
All
Size & Demographic Characteristics of Religious Groups
Publications
Filtering by:
Reset
-
-
10 facts about U.S. Catholics
Catholics are one of the largest religious groups in the United States, outnumbering any single Protestant denomination.
-
The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants
The globe’s 280 million immigrants shape countries’ religious composition. Christians make up the largest share, but Jews are most likely to have migrated.
-
Religious composition of the world’s migrants, 1990-2020
Explore our interactive table showing the religious composition of immigrants around the globe and how it’s changed from 1990 to 2020.
-
8 facts about atheists
Around six-in-ten U.S. atheists are men (64%). And seven-in-ten are ages 49 or younger, compared with about half of U.S. adults overall (52%).
-
Has the rise of religious ‘nones’ come to an end in the U.S.?
Although it’s possible that the “nones” have leveled off, it’s also possible that their growth has continued, but at a gradual pace that is difficult to see in the data.
-
7 facts about Hindus around the world
With Diwali celebrations underway, here are some facts about Hindus around the world.
-
Religious ‘switching’ patterns will help determine Christianity’s course in U.S.
Whether the U.S. will continue to have a Christian majority in 2070 will depend on many factors, including religious “switching.”
-
India’s Sex Ratio at Birth Begins To Normalize
India’s artificially wide ratio of baby boys to baby girls – which arose in the 1970s from the use of prenatal diagnostic technology to facilitate sex-selective abortions – now appears to be narrowing. Son bias has declined sharply among Sikhs, while Christians continue to have a natural balance of sons and daughters.
-
Why Pew Research Center typically can’t report the views of smaller U.S. religious groups
While the largest Christian traditions and religious “nones” can be consistently analyzed, smaller groups produce a large margin of error.
