Global Religious Demographics

Globally, women are younger than their male partners. They also are more likely to age alone and to live in single-parent households.

Globally, Muslims live in the biggest households, followed by Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated.

A declining share of Canadians identify as Christians. Most Canadians say religion’s influence in public life is waning in their country.

The global Muslim population is more concentrated in Islam’s main population centers than the global Christian population is for Christianity.

Germany has seen a dramatic shift away from Protestantism – one that has greatly outpaced a decline in the share of Germans who are Catholic.

While Slovakia is majority Catholic, around seven-in-ten Czechs are religiously unaffiliated – the highest share of unaffiliated adults in 34 European countries surveyed.

The Catholic Church remains closely tied to Europe. Catholics are the largest religious group in many of the continent’s most populous countries.

Pope Francis begins a four-day trip this weekend to the Baltic states, the first papal visit to these countries in 25 years. While the Baltic countries have a substantial Christian population, only Lithuania and Latvia have large numbers of Catholics.

India is home to 1.4 billion people – almost one-sixth of the world’s population – who belong to a variety of ethnicities and religions. While 94% of the world’s Hindus live in India, there also are substantial populations of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and adherents of folk religions. Here are five facts about religion in India.

Muslim societies have gained a reputation in recent decades for failing to adequately educate women. But a new analysis of Pew Research Center data on educational attainment and religion suggests that economics, not religion, is the key factor limiting the education of Muslim women.