WORLD: Migration and the Future of Faith

Source: INcontext, June 2015

Editor’s Note: This is from a larger analysis of the recent Pew Forum report on religion, but it’s from the section on migration, something not always factored into population studies.

International migration will influence the projected size of religious groups in various regions and countries. Numbers are, however, difficult to determine because migration is often linked to government policies and international events that can change quickly. For this reason, many population projections do not include migration in their models. But the Pew Research Center has developed an innovative way of using data on past migration patterns to estimate the religious composition of migrant flows in the decades ahead.

In Europe, the Muslim share of the population is expected to increase from 5.9% in 2010 to 10.2% in 2050 when migration is taken into account. Without migration, the Muslim share of Europe’s population in 2050 is projected to be nearly two percentage points lower (8.4%).

In North America, the Hindu share of the population is expected to nearly double in the decades ahead, from 0.7% in 2010 to 1.3% in 2050, when migration is included in the projection models. Without migration, the Hindu share of the region’s population would remain about the same (0.8%).

In the Middle East and North Africa, the continued migration of Christians into the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is expected to offset the exodus of Christians from other countries in the region. With migration factored in, the estimated Christian share of the population is expected to be just above 3% (down from nearly 4% in 2010).

» Read full story.

» See also these three finds: State of the World / The Task Reminaing (a short video from Global Frontier Missions), The Top 20 Countries Where Christianity Is Growing the Fastest (Movements.net), and Are Hindus Being Undercounted in Religion Surveys? (Worldwide Religious News).

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