According to the Reading, What Are the Two Factors That Affect Population Structure?
When demographers endeavor to forecast changes in the size of a population, they typically focus on four main factors: fertility rates, mortality rates (life expectancy), the initial historic period profile of the population (whether it is relatively onetime or relatively young to begin with) and migration. In the example of religious groups, a 5th gene is switching – how many people choose to enter and leave each group, including how many become unaffiliated with any religion.
This chapter presents an overview of each of these five main drivers of population change. It highlights of import trends, discusses key assumptions nigh the future and acknowledges weak spots in the demographic data currently available on some countries and religious groups.
In some cases, this affiliate also shows how different the projections would be if particular factors, such as migration, were not taken into account. These hypothetical scenarios are intended to requite readers a sense of how much touch various factors have on the projections.
Fertility
Over the final half century, the global fertility rate has fallen sharply.14 In the 1950 to 1955 period, the average woman was expected to have nearly five children over the course of her lifetime. By 2010-2015, the global average was nearly two.5 children per woman.15 According to the Un Population Division, worldwide fertility rates are expected to continue to drop in the decades to come up, gradually moving toward two.1 children per woman, which is traditionally viewed as the "replacement level" needed to maintain a stable population in countries with low mortality rates among the young.xvi
Equally a result of failing fertility rates, global population growth is slowing. Over the four decades from 1970 to 2010, the number of people on Earth grew nearly 90%. From 2010 to 2050, the world's population is expected to ascent 35%, from roughly vii billion to more than 9 billion.
Among the world's major religious groups, Muslims have the highest Total Fertility Rate as of 2010-2015, a global average of iii.1 children per woman. This is ane of the principal reasons why the Muslim population is expected to abound not merely in absolute numbers merely as well in relative terms – as a percentage of all the people in the earth – in the decades to come.
Christians (ii.7 children per woman) are the only other major religious grouping whose Total Fertility Rate, on a worldwide footing, exceeds the average for all women (ii.5), during the present 5-yr catamenia (2010-2015).
Globally, fertility amidst Hindus (2.iv children per woman) and Jews (ii.three) is in a higher place the replacement level (two.1 children). Fertility rates amidst all the other groups – followers of folk religions (1.viii), other religions as a whole (i.seven), the religiously unaffiliated (1.seven) and Buddhists (1.6) – are below the replacement level, meaning the groups are non begetting enough children to maintain their electric current populations, all else remaining equal.
One of the assumptions behind the U.N.'southward global population forecasts, as well equally the Pew Inquiry projections, is that over time fertility rates generally converge toward the replacement level.17 If they start above the replacement level, they tend to decline. If they start below the replacement level, they tend to rise – although they may modify slowly and may not really reach the replacement level in the coming decades.
Thus, the religious groups with fertility rates above replacement level in 2010 – Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Jews – are expected to experience a reject in their fertility rates past 2050. Fertility rates for Muslims and Hindus are projected to decline most sharply – more than 20% – from iii.1 to 2.3 children per Muslim adult female and from 2.4 to ane.8 children per Hindu woman. Amid Christians, the fertility rate is projected to decline from 2.7 children to ii.iii. The worldwide fertility charge per unit among Jews also is expected to drop, albeit only slightly, from 2.3 in 2010 to 2.1 in 2050.
At the aforementioned fourth dimension, fertility rates among the four religious groups that are beneath two.i children per woman as of 2010 – followers of folk religions, other religions, Buddhists and the unaffiliated – are expected to rise somewhat over the adjacent four decades, moving closer to the replacement level.18
Land-Level Differences
Since some major religious groups are concentrated in a minor number of countries, fertility patterns in a few countries can have a large influence on a group's global fertility rate. For case, Hindus are expected to experience a decline in their Total Fertility Rate over the adjacent four decades in office because Bharat'due south overall fertility rate has been dropping – from 5.9 children per woman in 1950 to 2.5 in 2010 – and is expected to fall to 1.9 past 2050. (Roughly 94% of the world's Hindus live in India.)
Similarly, since roughly viii-in-ten of the earth's Jews live in either the United States or Israel, Jewish fertility rates are heavily influenced past patterns in those two countries. While Israel'southward overall fertility rate is expected to decrease – from ii.9 in 2010 to 2.2 in 2050 – U.S. fertility rates are expected to stay relatively stable (effectually ii.1) over the aforementioned period. The combined affect is a slight decrease in Jewish fertility, globally.
China is abode to at to the lowest degree half of all Buddhists, adherents of folk religions and religiously unaffiliated people in the world. Consequently, Communist china'southward fertility patterns have a substantial impact on expected fertility rates for these groups. The Un Population Sectionalisation anticipates that China's Total Fertility Rate will decrease from i.vi children per woman in 2010 to 1.5 in 2020, and then begin rising, reaching 1.8 by 2050. Similarly, Buddhists, adherents of folk religions and religiously unaffiliated people are expected to feel a similar initial refuse or plateau in their fertility rates, followed by a subsequent increase, equally shown in this chart above.
Future fertility rates for each country in this report are based on forecasts published past the United Nations Population Division.19 While post-obit the U.N.'s overall projections at the land level, withal, researchers at the Pew Inquiry Middle and the International Constitute for Practical Systems Analysis analyzed more than than 200 censuses and surveys to calculate fertility rates specific to major religious groups within 135 countries and territories, which constitute 93% of the globe'southward 2010 population.20 An additional 3% of the world's population live in 29 countries in which the overwhelming majority (over 95%) of people within the state belong to just i major religious grouping. In the remaining countries and territories, which include 4% of the world'due south population, reliable data on fertility rates for religious groups were non bachelor.21 In both of these latter categories, each religious group was assigned the country's overall fertility rate.
Projections of future fertility rates within each country assume that differences in fertility levels between religious groups will slowly disappear (reaching convergence later 100 years – i.e., in the yr 2110) as differences in their levels of education and admission to contraceptives gradually attenuate.
Regional Differences in Fertility
Fertility patterns may vary between countries and larger geographic regions for a host of reasons, including cultural norms, levels of economic evolution, education systems and regime policies that encourage or discourage family planning. Fertility rates also may be influenced by infant mortality rates, women's participation in the labor market place, income levels and social condition, among other factors.
Of the six geographic regions analyzed in this report, simply 2 take a Total Fertility Rate that is higher than the global average of 2.v children per woman: sub-Saharan Africa (4.eight) and the Middle Due east and North Africa (3.0). The Latin America-Caribbean region has the third-highest fertility rate (ii.2), followed by the Asia-Pacific region (2.one) and N America (ii.0). Europe is the only region with a fertility rate that is well below replacement level (1.6).
Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle Due east-North Africa region, the ii areas where fertility rates exceed the global boilerplate in the current flow (2010-2015), are expected to have the highest rates of population growth in the coming decades. These are the only regions where population growth is expected to outpace global population growth from 2010 to 2050.
Within a single religious group, fertility rates can vary enormously depending on where people live. For instance, Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa have a fertility rate of v.6 children per woman, on average, while Muslims in Europe have an average of two.1 children per woman. Similarly, religiously unaffiliated people in sub-Saharan Africa have more than four children per adult female, on average, while the fertility rate amidst Europe'southward unaffiliated population – 1.4 children per woman – is well below replacement level.
In near regions where reliable fertility data are available for religious groups, Muslims have more children per woman than the regional average. Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa accept the highest Total Fertility Rate (5.6) of any major religious group in any large region. Beyond the Asia-Pacific region, North America and Europe, fertility rates amidst Muslims besides are higher than among Christians and the unaffiliated. In the Middle East and Northward Africa, Muslims make upwardly more than 90% of the population and are largely responsible for the region'southward relatively high fertility rate (three.0).22
Because some religious groups are heavily full-bodied in a few regions and are rare in other places, separate fertility rates cannot be reliably calculated for all groups in all regions. Reliable data on fertility levels are unavailable, for example, among the relatively pocket-sized number of Jews in sub-Saharan Africa, Muslims in Latin America and the Caribbean and religiously unaffiliated people in the Eye East and Northward Africa.
In the two regions where overall population growth is expected to be fastest in the coming decades – sub-Saharan Africa and the Center Eastward-N Africa region – Christian fertility rates are lower than the regional averages (iv.five children per adult female among Christians compared with 4.eight overall in sub-Saharan Africa, and ii.5 among Christians compared with 3.0 overall in the Center East and North Africa). On the other hand, in the 4 regions where overall population growth is expected to exist slower, Christian fertility rates equal or exceed the regional averages. In North America, for example, Christians have a higher fertility rate (2.1) than the regional population equally a whole (2.0).
In almost every region where data are available, the unaffiliated take a fertility rate that is lower than the regional average. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, North America and Europe, fertility amidst religiously unaffiliated people is lower than the regional averages and lower than the rates among Christians and Muslims. (See nautical chart to a higher place.) The ane exception is Latin America and the Caribbean, where the unaffiliated accept slightly higher fertility (2.3 children per woman) than the regional average (ii.two).
Hypothetical Scenarios: Seeing How Much Difference Fertility Makes
Every bit previously noted, the projections in this report take into account differences in fertility rates amongst major religious groups within 135 countries and territories. Over time, these differences can be highly consequential. For example, Nigeria is estimated at present to take roughly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, but Nigerian Muslims have a significantly higher Total Fertility Rate (6.5 children per woman) than Nigerian Christians (4.5). Every bit a result, Muslims are expected to make up 59% of Nigeria's population by 2050, while the Christian share is projected to drop to 39%.
Ane style to see the impact of fertility differences on population projections is to apply an alternative set of assumptions, such as assigning all religious groups within each land the same charge per unit.
In Nigeria, for example, this hypothetical scenario would hateful that both Christians and Muslims would exist assigned – for the sake of illustration – the state's boilerplate fertility rate (5.4 children per woman). If this were the case, in this alternate projection model, Nigeria's total population in 2050 would be larger than it is today (this is besides true in the main projection model), but the land's religious composition would not alter much over the coming decades, ending with nearly equal shares of Christians (48%) and Muslims (50%) in 2050.23 Comparing the results of the two scenarios, information technology is clear that Muslims' higher fertility rates are gradually reshaping the country'southward religious composition.
By contrast, at the global level, the culling project scenario would yield little modify in the size of major religions. If one were to artificially assume that within each country, all religious groups shared the aforementioned fertility charge per unit, Muslims would even so be the fastest-growing major religious grouping worldwide, and the religious limerick of the earth in 2050 would look very similar to how information technology appears in the master projection scenario. There would be merely a slight uptick in the Christian share of the globe'due south population (32% instead of 31%) and a corresponding subtract in the Muslim share (29% instead of 30%).
The outcomes of the two project scenarios are similar because the future growth of religious groups is driven largely by differences in the geographic regions and private countries in which the groups are concentrated. Since people'due south fertility choices have much to do with their social and economic environments, differences in fertility between countries are often much greater than differences in fertility amidst religious groups within a single state. For example, as noted above, the Christian fertility rate in Nigeria is 4.5 children per woman, while the Muslim fertility rate in Nigeria is six.5. In Australia, the fertility rates for Christians and Muslims are 2.0 and three.0, respectively. In both places, the fertility rate amidst Muslims is higher than amidst Christians. But the differences inside each state are smaller than the differences betwixt the 2 countries, with the average woman in Nigeria bearing about 3.5 more than children than her analogue in Commonwealth of australia.
Life Expectancy
Life expectancy at nativity – an estimate of the expected life span of an average newborn child – has been rising effectually the world. According to the Un, global life expectancy at nascency increased from 48 years in the 1950 to 1955 period to 69 years in 2010-2015, and it is expected to go on to rise over the next iv decades.24
People in many (though non all) countries are living longer due to increased access to healthcare, improvements in diet and hygiene, effective responses to infectious disease, and many other factors.
These developments in healthcare and living weather, however, have not occurred uniformly effectually the world. As a outcome, life expectancy varies across the half-dozen regions in this written report. At present, N America has the highest boilerplate life expectancy (79 years), followed closely past Europe (77) and Latin America and the Caribbean (75). Average life expectancies in the Middle East and N Africa (72) and the Asia-Pacific region (70) are slightly above the global average (69). Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where boilerplate life expectancy (55 years) is below the global average.
Past 2050, life expectancy at birth is projected to average 76 years effectually the globe, an increment of about 7 years from the electric current five-year period (2010-2015). All six geographic regions are expected to come across a rise in their populations' life expectancy over the coming decades. But regions and private countries that take relatively high life expectancies in 2010-2015 are expected to brand but pocket-size gains compared with regions and private countries where life expectancy, at present, is much lower. For instance, North America is expected to see a five-year gain in life expectancy by 2050 – from 79 to 84 years. Sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, is projected to feel an increment in boilerplate life expectancy of 13 years, from 55 to 68 years.
Life expectancy is a pregnant cistron in estimating the size of the world'due south populations over fourth dimension. Groups with higher life expectancies will, on average, live longer and (all else remaining equal) have larger populations. A higher share of immature people who are live today in Europe and Northward America are likely to be live in 2050 compared with those residing in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
At the same fourth dimension, the greater-than-average increase in life expectancy that is projected in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the reasons its population is expanding so rapidly and boosting the global size of the region's 2 biggest religious groups, Muslims and Christians.
Worldwide, footling information is available on differences in life expectancy amongst religious groups within individual countries. In the absenteeism of improve data, the projections in this written report presume that people in all religious groups have the boilerplate life expectancy of the country in which they live. For example, both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria are assigned the country'south average life expectancy for 2010-2015 (53 years), while both Christians and Muslims in the Uk are assigned the U.K.'s average life expectancy for 2010-2015, which is 80 years.
Nevertheless, differences in life expectancy play an of import role in the population growth projections. This is because the globe's major religious groups are concentrated in different countries, and some countries have much higher life expectancies than others.
For example, considering of the countries in which Jews are full-bodied, the global life expectancy at birth for Jews in the present five-year period (2010-2015) is estimated to exist lxxx years, the highest of any of the religious groups in this study. Other groups that are full-bodied in countries where life expectancy at birth currently exceeds the global average (69 years) are the religiously unaffiliated (75 years), Buddhists (74 years), members of folk religions (73 years), followers of other religions (71 years) and Christians (71 years). Past contrast, both Muslims (67 years) and Hindus (66 years) are concentrated in countries with relatively low life expectancy at birth.
In the 2050-2055 period, Jews yet are projected to have the highest life expectancy of all the major religious groups, a global average of 85 years, five years longer than at present. But the greatest gains in longevity over the next four decades are expected among Hindus, whose global average life expectancy is projected to rising from 66 years in 2010-2015 to 75 years in 2050-2055.
Age Construction
In the decades alee, the world's population will increment as people live longer. From 1950 until nearly 1980, the median age of the world'due south population remained in the low 20s. By 2010, all the same, the median age of the population was 28 years. And by 2050, the global median historic period is expected to exist 37, as declining fertility rates lead to relative stability in the number of young children and every bit the elderly population soars. The United nations estimates that the number of people ages 100 and older will rise from virtually 150,000 in the year 2000 to more than iii million in 2050.
A simple way to expect at the age structure of the world's population is to divide anybody into three historic period groups – children younger than 15, teens and adults between ages 15 and 59 and adults ages lx and older. As of 2010, the largest group was the center category (62%), and there were many more than children (27%) than older adults (eleven%). Merely every bit the global population ages, this distribution will shift, peculiarly among the youngest and oldest cohorts. By 2050, according to U.Due north. projections, the share of people ages 60 and older (22%) will exceed the share under age 15 (twenty%).The youthfulness of a population is an important factor in future growth. All else beingness equal, a population that begins with a relatively large percentage of people who are in – or soon will enter – their prime childbearing years will grow faster than a population that begins with many people who are beyond their prime number reproductive years. Moreover, growth propelled by a youthful population tends to carry into the next generation, as the younger cohort'southward children reach maturity and begin to accept babies of their ain, creating a kind of demographic momentum.
Among the earth's major religious groups, Muslims had the highest concentration of children as of 2010 (34% of Muslims worldwide were under the age of xv), while Jews had the highest concentration of older adults (20% of Jews worldwide were 60 or older in 2010).
Globally, fewer than one-in-five religiously unaffiliated people (nineteen%) were under the age of 15, the smallest share of children in any of the major religious groups in 2010. This reflects the geographic concentration of the unaffiliated in countries such as Cathay and Nihon, which have relatively old populations with low fertility rates.
For similar reasons, Buddhists also are an older population, with simply twenty% under age 15. Past dissimilarity, more than a quarter of Christians worldwide and 3-in-ten Hindus were in the youngest age group equally of 2010. This reflects the loftier fertility rates in recent decades among Christians in sub-Saharan Africa and Hindus in Bharat.
For the purposes of projecting future growth, the number of women in their early reproductive years also is a key factor. As of 2010, thirteen% of the world'south population consisted of females betwixt the ages of 15 and 29. Muslims were the but major religious group with a higher share of women in this category (14%) than the global average, even so another reason the Muslim population is poised for rapid growth in the coming decades. The religiously unaffiliated (11%) and Jews (ten%) had the everyman shares of women ages 15-29 in their populations, as of 2010.
Religious Switching
In many countries, information technology is fairly common for adults to switch from identifying with the organized religion in which they grew upwards to identifying with another organized religion or with no organized religion.25 Just merely in recent decades have cross-national surveys begun to measure individual changes in religious identity.26 The broadest analysis of religious switching published in contempo years examined just 40 countries, primarily in Europe, using data nerveless between 1991 and 2001.27
The projections in this report go further, showing what the future religious landscape may look like if switching continues at the same rates recently observed in lxx countries, which are spread throughout the earth'due south major regions.28 Data on these switching patterns come from surveys carried out between 2008 and 2013 past the Pew Research Eye and other organizations, including studies carried out under the auspices of the International Social Survey Program. This collection of data provides the most comprehensive pic available to engagement of global patterns of switching amongst major religious groups, including from having been raised in a organized religion to beingness religiously unaffiliated as an developed.29
Levels of switching are different for men and women. Only at the global level, net movement due to the religious switching of men and women follows similar patterns. The chart below shows the projected full amount of move into and out of major religious groups betwixt 2010 and 2050 for countries with information on switching.
The largest net movement is expected to be out of Christianity (66 meg people), including the net deviation of twice as many men (44 million) every bit women (22 million). Similarly, net gains amidst the unaffiliated (61 one thousand thousand) are projected to exist more twice as large for men (43 million) as for women (19 million). Muslims and followers of folk religions and other religions are expected to experience pocket-size gains due to religious switching. Jews and Buddhists are expected to experience modest net losses through religious switching.
Regional Patterns
At the regional level, some patterns stand out. The largest projected cyberspace gains from switching between 2010 and 2050 are into the ranks of the unaffiliated, especially in Northward America (26 million), Europe (24 million), Latin America (six 1000000) and the Asia-Pacific region (four million). But in sub-Saharan Africa, the greatest net gains are expected for Muslims (iii million).
The largest net losses are expected amongst Christian populations, notably in North America (28 million), Europe (24 1000000), Latin America and the Caribbean (nine one thousand thousand) and sub-Saharan Africa (3 million). In the Asia-Pacific region, Christians are expected to take a internet loss, due to religious switching, of more two million adherents.
Culling Scenarios: Seeing How Much Difference Switching Makes
Religious switching may have a big touch on the religious composition of private countries. But over the twoscore-year horizon of these projections, it is expected to accept only a minor event on the global size of nearly religious groups.
The global touch of religious switching can be seen by comparing the main projection scenario used in this study, which models switching in 70 countries, with two hypothetical scenarios – ane in which switching is modeled in a full of a 155 countries, and i that assumes no switching will occur anywhere.
In the main project model used throughout this report, the lxx countries with documented switching information contain 42% of the earth'southward population, as of 2010. In the 2nd scenario considered here, switching is projected in an additional 85 countries by using some of the initial 70 countries as proxies for switching patterns in similar, oft neighboring, nations.30 For case, although no direct information on switching is available for Canada, one might assume that Canada is like to the United States and therefore employ the same rates of switching observed in the U.S. to Canada'southward population. Since the 85 additional countries account for nigh 10% of the world's population, the 2nd scenario models switching among a lilliputian more half the people on Earth.
The third scenario assumes that no religious switching will take place from 2010 to 2050, significant that every adult will remain in the group in which he or she was raised. All those raised as Christians will stay Christian, all those raised without a religion volition stay unaffiliated, and so on. Only this hypothetical "no switching" scenario, like the other two scenarios, takes into account all the other demographic drivers affecting the future size of religious groups: fertility rates, mortality rates, current age profiles and migration patterns.
The biggest differences in the issue of these three scenarios are the size of the Christian and unaffiliated populations in 2050. The Christian share of the earth's population is greatest in the "no switching" scenario (32.3%), followed by the main scenario that models switching in 70 countries (31.iv%). Information technology is slightly lower (31.iii%) in the scenario that models switching in 155 countries.
The unaffiliated share of the globe's population is lowest in 2050 (12.3%) in the scenario with no switching. When switching is modeled in 70 countries – the principal scenario – thirteen.2% of the world's population is projected to accept no religious affiliation in 2050. When switching is modeled for an boosted 85 countries using proxy information, the projections testify 13.iv% of the global population as religiously unaffiliated in 2050.
Comparing the outcomes of these three scenarios suggests that religious switching – at least at recently observed levels, in the limited number of countries for which data on switching are available – volition have a relatively small affect on the projected size of major religious groups in 2050.
The biggest unknown factor, however, is Mainland china, the earth'south most populous country. Because of a lack of reliable data on religious switching in China, none of the scenarios models religious switching among its 1.3 billion people. If at that place is considerable switching in China in the coming decades, information technology could lower the percent of the earth'southward population that is unaffiliated and boost the numbers of Christians, Buddhists and mayhap other groups. (See sidebar on Mainland china at the end of this chapter.)
Migration
International migration has no immediate affect on the global size of religious groups. But, over time, migration tin can significantly change the religious makeup of individual countries and even entire regions. Europe, for case, has experienced an inflow of Muslims from North Africa, South Asia and Turkey over the past decade. And some of the Gulf Cooperation Quango states, such every bit Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have had substantial clearing of non-Muslims from Asia and beyond.31
Estimating future migration is challenging because the move of people across borders is dependent on government policies and international events that can change quickly. And because many migrants follow economical opportunities, migration patterns also are dependent on changing economic atmospheric condition.
Still, it is possible to employ information on by migration as a reasonable approximate for the time to come, just equally past fertility and religious switching patterns are used in this report to model future fertility and switching.
The Pew Research Center, in collaboration with researchers at the International Establish for Applied Systems Analysis, has developed an innovative technique to gauge recent migration patterns and their religious breakup. First, recent changes in the origins and destinations of migrants worldwide are estimated using census and survey data about the migrant population living in each country. Changes in this migrant "stock" data over the 2005 to 2010 menstruum are used to guess migrant "flows," the number of people who moved between countries during this period, taking into account the slowing of migration in many parts of the world due to an economic downturn.32 2d, religious breakdowns of migrants based on data from the Pew Research Eye's Global Organized religion and Migration Database are applied to the origins and destinations of migrants. Finally, the religious breakdown of migrant flows is used to calculate migration rates into and out of nigh countries by religion, by sexual activity and by five-twelvemonth age groups. (For more than detail on how time to come migration was projected, see the Methodology.)
Initial Effects of Migration, 2010-2015
Betwixt 2010 and 2015, approximately nineteen million people are expected to motility across international borders. Most of them are either Christians or Muslims, the world's two largest religious groups. Christian migrants who are projected to number nigh 9 1000000, or 46% of all international migrants betwixt 2010 and 2015 are expected to come primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean area and to move primarily to the The states. Muslim migrants, numbering almost six 1000000 in total, are expected to come largely from the Asia-Pacific and Eye East-N Africa regions, migrating within those same regions as well as to Europe and Northward America.
Nearly 3 million migrants, or about 14% of the expected total between 2010 and 2015, are estimated to be Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of folk religions or members of other religious groups. About two million migrants (9%) are expected to have no religious affiliation.
As a result of these movements from one region to some other, the Asia-Pacific region is projected to experience a net loss of approximately ii one thousand thousand Muslims and 500,000 Hindus between 2010 and 2015. The Latin America-Caribbean area region is likely to see a net loss of 3 million Christians from migration. And sub-Saharan Africa is projected to accept a net loss of about 500,000 Christians and Muslims, combined.
However, the birth rates in these regions are relatively high, and their current populations are relatively young. Consequently, their total populations are projected to grow despite emigration, and the outflows are not likely to significantly modify their religious makeup.
By contrast, net inflows of migrants are expected to have a substantial impact on the religious makeup of many countries in Europe, North America and the Middle East-North Africa region. For instance, a net inflow of one million Muslims is projected to occur in Europe between 2010 and 2015. Smaller numerical gains from migration also are projected in Europe for both Buddhists and Hindus.
Religious minorities in North America also are expected to experience net gains from migration between 2010 and 2015, including Muslims (about 400,000), Hindus (near 200,000) and Buddhists (virtually 200,000). These religious groups are expected to come from all over the world, but primarily from Asia and the Pacific.
The Eye East-North Africa region is likely to see a net inflow of Hindus and Christians through migration, primarily to the oil-rich Gulf states. Hindus are expected to come principally from India and Nepal, while Christians are projected to come up from the Philippines, other countries in Asia and the Pacific and Europe.
Seeing How Much Difference Migration Makes in the 2010-2050 Projections
To see how much impact migration has on the projections, researchers compared the main projection scenario used in this report with an alternative scenario in which no international migration occurs after 2010.
The main projections in this report indicate that the share of Muslims in Europe's population will about double between 2010 and 2050, from about 5.nine% to x.ii%. A variety of factors, including higher nativity rates and a bulging youth population amidst Muslims in Europe, underlie this expected increase. But immigration also plays a function. The projected share of Muslims in Europe in 2050 is nearly two percentage points college than in the alternative scenario with no new migration. Indeed, almost half (53%) of the projected growth of Europe'due south Muslim population tin can be attributed to new migration.
In sure countries, the bear upon is even greater. Sweden's population, for example, was 4.6% Muslim equally of 2010; factoring in migration, that share is expected to more than than double, to 12.4%, past 2050. In an alternative scenario involving no additional immigration to Sweden after 2010, the Muslim share of the population notwithstanding would increase by 2050, but only to half dozen.eight%. In addition to Sweden, the European countries in which migration is projected to make the biggest impact on the Muslim population – a difference of at least 3 percent points – are Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In North America, minority religious groups (including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, other religions and the unaffiliated) also are projected to grow, partly due to immigration. For example, Muslims are projected to make upwardly ii.iv% of North America's population in 2050 when factoring in migration, only simply ane.4% with no new migration. Similarly, the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated in North America are forecast to be 1.5 percentage points higher in a projection scenario that includes migration than in an alternative scenario that assumes naught migration from 2010 to 2050.
A few countries in the Asia-Pacific region are likely to experience religious change due to immigration. For example, Australia and New Zealand are projected to have slight increases in their not-Christian populations, equally Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus continue moving to these 2 countries. Muslim and Christian populations are forecast to grow in economic hubs such equally Hong Kong and Japan as immigrants belonging to these religious groups movement from various countries in East Asia, including Indonesia and the Philippines. Meanwhile, the Hindu and Muslim shares of Singapore's population are anticipated to grow significantly in the years alee, by and large due to migration from India and Malaysia.
The Middle East-Due north Africa region also is expected to experience substantial religious change when immigration is factored into the projections, mostly due to predictable migration to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The shares of Hindus and Buddhists are both projected to rise in these bulk-Muslim countries; in fact, about ninety% of Buddhist and Hindu growth in the region can exist attributed to migration. Although migration is expected to boost the religious diversity of GCC countries, all the Gulf states are projected to retain Muslim majorities in 2050.
Religious change also can occur as a consequence of emigration, the movement of people out of a land or region. The deviation of Christians from the Middle Due east-North Africa region, for example, lowers the projected share of Christians in places such as Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Syria.
But across the Eye East and North Africa as a whole, the emigration of Christians is expected to exist beginning by an influx of Christian immigrants in the Gulf Cooperation Quango countries. Indeed, the net number of Christians entering GCC countries is expected to exist nearly three times as big (ane.5 million) as the net number of Christians leaving countries with historic Christian populations in the Heart East-North Africa region (near 500,000).
Emigration of smaller religious groups from some regions is expected to have a noticeable effect. For example, most of the projected decline in the number of Jews in Europe (from 1.4 million in 2010 to ane.2 million in 2050) and sub-Saharan Africa (from 100,000 in 2010 to 70,000 in 2050) tin can be attributed to Jewish emigration from these regions, mainly to Israel. And most of the expected decline of Hindus in Latin America and the Caribbean (from 660,000 in 2010 to 640,000 in 2050) is due to Hindu emigration out of the region, mainly to N America.
The Potential Impact of Religious Switching in China
With a population currently estimated at more than 1.3 billion, China could brand a big deviation in the global religious landscape during the coming decades. China now officially recognizes Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, as well as Protestants associated with the Protestant 3-Self Patriotic Movement and Catholics who are part of the Catholic Patriotic Association.33 Adherents of other religions, including Christians who worship in unregistered churches, may exist reluctant to reveal their religious identity to officials or strangers. Measuring religious affiliation in Cathay relies on imperfect surveys and other sources of information, including reports past official religious bodies, ethnic proxies (for Muslims), and estimates past religious groups operating in networks that are non approved past the Chinese government. Surveys that do exist, for example, seem to underreport unregistered groups and Chinese folk religions in particular. Therefore, non only are electric current estimates only crude estimates, simply reliable data on recent trends are unobtainable. Furthermore, in the past decade hundreds of millions of Chinese have moved from the countryside – where unregistered practice was reported by observers to exist higher – to cities where religious networks may not have been transferred or replaced.34
There are no sources adequate to mensurate patterns of religious switching beyond China. This sidebar briefly reviews some of the challenges of measuring religion in China and provides an example of how religious switching in Red china could change the global projections in this report.
While it is clear that religious affiliation and practise have risen dramatically in China since the terminate of the Cultural Revolution, data on contempo patterns of religious switching are practically nonexistent35. Anecdotally, some paper manufactures and reports from religious groups have attempted to draw changes underway in China, but it is unclear how accurately these accounts reflect change underway at the country level.36 Withal, some experts believe that Red china's Christian population is growing, maybe rapidly. Almost notably, ane of the world's leading specialists on organized religion in Mainland china, Purdue University sociologist Fenggang Yang, estimates that the Christian population in China grew at an average almanac rate of seven% between 1950 and 2010. At this rate, Yang calculates the proportion of Communist china's population that is Christian could grow from five% in 2010 to 67% in 2050.37
Without survey information measuring patterns of switching among Red china's main religious groups, it is not possible to formally model switching in China, equally this report does for other countries.38 Nonetheless, information technology is possible to conduct sensitivity tests that provide ballpark estimates of how much impact religious change in China could, potentially, have on the global religious landscape.
While all religious groups in China could be experiencing significant modify through switching, media reports and expert assessments generally suggest that the main effects are rising numbers of Christians and failing numbers of religiously unaffiliated people. The post-obit sensitivity tests assume, for illustrative purposes, that switching is limited to this movement betwixt the unaffiliated and Christians.
Every bit of 2010, Mainland china had an estimated 68 million Christians and 701 one thousand thousand unaffiliated people. Due primarily to differences in the age and sex composition of these initial populations, in the primary projection scenario – which does non attempt to model religious switching – China'southward Christian population is expected to grow slightly by 2050, to 71 meg, while the unaffiliated population is expected to decline to 663 million.
Nether that main scenario, 5.iv% of China's population and 31.4% of the world's full population volition be Christian in 2050. If People's republic of china's Christian population were to turn down to Japanese levels (2.four% of the country's population) in 2050, it would reduce the Christian share of the global population to 30.nine%. On the other paw, if Communist china's Christian population was to increase to the level projected for Due south Korea in 2050 (33.three% of the land's population), it would raise the count of Christians in Communist china to 437 1000000 and the share of Christians in the earth's overall population to 35.3%.
And if everyone who is currently unaffiliated in China were to convert to Christianity past 2050, China'due south population would be 56.2% Christian (734 million Christians), raising the Christian share of the world'due south population to 38.5% and lowering the unaffiliated share of the global population to half-dozen.1%. Though that scenario may be unlikely, it offers a crude sense of how much difference religious switching in China maximally could have by 2050. Extremely rapid growth of Christianity in Communist china could maintain or, conceivably, even increase Christianity'south electric current numerical advantage as the earth'southward largest religion, and it could significantly accelerate the projected decline by 2050 in the share of the global population that is religiously unaffiliated.
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Source: https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/
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