Muslims Growing Fastest, Hindus Grew By 126 Million: New Study Reveals Global Religious Landscape

The global population has grown between 2010 and 2020, with most of the religious groups seeing a similar rise in the decade, a recently released report has said.

While Christianity remained the world’s biggest religious group, the share of Christians in the global population fell 1.8 percent to 28.8 per cent, a Pew Research has said.

The report based on the data between 2010 and 2020 showed that Christians rose by 122 million, while Muslims grew the fastest among the major faiths.

The population of the Muslims grew by 346 million, more than all other religions combined, to reach 2 billion in 2020. The share of the world’s population that is Muslim rose by 1.8 points, to 25.6 per cent.

The population of Hindus, meanwhile grew by 126 million, reaching 1.2 billion in 2020, the report said.

Buddhists were the only major religious group seeing a fall in population in 2020 compared to a decade earlier.

The study also included a category - People with no religious affiliation – sometimes referred to as 'nones', seeing a growth of 270 million, reaching 1.9 billion.

Hindus grew at the same rate as the world's overall population, while the proportion of Hindus at the global level remained at 14.9 per cent.

Similarly, Jews also remained steady as a share of the world’s population, with the total population at 14.8 million.

Other religious groups, including Baha’is, Daoists, Jains, Sikhs and others, expanded in tandem with the rest of the world, with their share steady at 2.2 per cent.

Countries Experiencing Substantial Changes In Muslim Population

The Pew Research said that few countries experienced changes in the percentage of Muslims in their population.

Though the research points to a significant growth in the Muslim population, the demographic change was seen largely in countries where Muslims are concentrated.

The countries that registered at least 5 per cent change in Muslim share include: Kazakhstan, Benin and Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the Muslim share in the population decreased by more than 5 points in Tanzania and Oman.

Africa Has More Christians Than Europe

The study also showed that Sub-Saharan Africa has more population of Christians than Europe. 

The Pew research showed that in 2020, 30.7 per cent of the world's Christians live in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 22.3 per cent in Europe. 

The reason behind the tectonic shift has been the higher fertility rates in Africa than in Europe, coupled with the rise of Christian disaffiliation in Western Europe.

However, Christians remained a majority in 120 countries and territories in 2020, down from 124 a decade earlier. 

Christians dropped below 50 per cent of the population in the United Kingdom (49%), Australia (47%), France (46%) and Uruguay (44%), the report said. 

In each of these places, religiously unaffiliated people now account for 40% or more of the population, and smaller religious groups such as Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews or adherents of other religions (combined) account for 11% or less, it added.