Islam Will Overtake Christianity As The World’s Top Religion By 2070: Pew Report
A new report released by the Pew Research Center claims that analysis of global demographic trends shows that Islam will overtake Christianity to become the most popular religion in the world by 2070. The global population of Muslims will catch up with Christians in 2070 and then overtake it. By 2100, there will be one percent more Muslims in the world than Christians, according to the study.
The study also concluded that migration will create a surge in the Muslim population of Europe and America.
The study by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center projects that Islam’s share of the world’s population will catch up with and overtake Christianity’s share in 2070. Both religions will have an equal percentage share of the global population at 32 percent each in 2070 before Islam overtakes Christianity.
By 2100, the global Muslim population will be one percent greater than the global Christian population. According to the report, migration will play a major role in increasing the Muslim population in North America and North Europe.
“While it does not change the global population, migration is helping to increase the Muslim population in some regions, including North America and Europe.”
There were only about 3.3 million Muslims in the U.S. in 2016, about one percent of the population, but by 2050 the Muslim share of the total U.S. population would have increased to 2.1 percent, according to the study.
The analysis also concluded the Muslims are the fastest-growing religious group in the world. In 2010, there were about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, about 23 percent of the world population, while the global Christian population was 2.2 billion, about 31 percent of the world population.
Although the world’s population is projected to grow by 35 percent in the next decades, the global Muslim population is expected to increase by 73 percent. The global Muslim population will increase from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050.
Expressed in percentage terms, while Muslims made up only about 23.2 percent of the global population in 2010, by 2050 they will make up about 29.7 percent of the global population, about three-in-ten of the world population.
And by 2070, the global population of Muslims will catch up with the Christian population and both will share an equal percentage of the world population, 32 percent each.
By 2050, Muslim population will equal Christianity. Pew Research finds that Islam is the fastest growing religion… https://t.co/yqx3c9y0Up
— Pacific Geopolitics (@PacGeopolitics) March 1, 2017
According to Pew, the ongoing surge in the global Muslim population is because Muslims are having more children than others, and the birth rates among major Muslim populations are higher than the birth rates among other religious groups.
The study estimated that each Muslim woman gives birth to an estimated 3.1 children compared with an average of 2.3 for other groups, including Christians.
Muslims populations also tend to be the youngest worldwide, with 34 percent of Muslims being younger than 15, compared to 27 percent of Christians. Muslims also have the lowest median age, estimated in 2010 at 23 years. This means that the average age for Muslims is seven years less than non-Muslim groups, estimated at about 30 years.
Demographers understand that a youthful population powers rapid population growth because younger people have a higher level of reproductive activity and fertility.
About 62 percent of the world’s Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region that includes some of the countries with the largest population globally, such as Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Turkey.
By 2050, India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, according to the study.
However, Vox pointed out that while it is common for far-right wing groups in Europe to suggest that the continent is on the verge of becoming Muslim-dominated, Pew’s projection of current demographic trends shows that Muslims will make up only about 10 percent of the population by 2050. However, critics pointed out that 10 percent represents a significantly high minority population.
But quoting Conrad Hackett, Pew researcher and demographer, Laurie Goodstein noted in an article published in the New York Times in 2015 that population studies show that after arriving in Europe, Muslim immigrants “tended to leave behind the high fertility rates of their home countries and [have] smaller families, much like other Europeans.”
[Featured Image by Zull Must/Shutterstock]
