Religion continues to pervade societies around the world while varying across spectrums of geography, age, income, and education. WIN/Gallup International published the results of a survey on Monday that revealed two-thirds of the global community still considers itself religious.
"Religion continues to dominate our everyday lives and we see that the total number of people who consider themselves to be religious is actually relatively high," said Jean-Marc Leger, President of WIN/Gallup International Association.
The poll asked nearly 64,000 individuals in 65 different countries whether they consider themselves: " a. a religious person, b. not a religious person, c. a convinced atheist, or d. do not know/no response." In each country, WIN/Gallup interviewed a representative group of 1000 men and women. Out of the roughly 1,000 United States citizens who responded, 56 percent identified as religious persons. 33 percent of Americans considered themselves not religious, and only 6 percent regarded themselves as convinced atheists.
According to the research, Africa and the Middle East (including North Africa) were the most religious regions, with 86 and 82 percent religious respectively. Thailand was the most religious nation, with 94 percent of participants associating with religion and only 2 percent being non-religious or convinced atheist. Armenia, Bangladesh, Morocco, Fiji, and South Africa were the next most religious countries, with 91-93 percent of participants being religious.
China was the least religious nation, with 61 percent claiming to be atheist, at least twice the amount of atheists in any country that participated in the survey. 29 percent of the Chinese participants identified as not religious, and only 7 percent said they were religious. Hong Kong and Japan had the next highest rates of atheism, with 34 and 31 percent respectively.
The United Kingdom had only 30 percent of participants identify as religious, while 66 percent said they were either not religious or atheist. Israel's results were similar, with 30 percent being religious and 65 percent identifying as non-religious or atheist. Polls in the Palestinian territories recorded 75 percent religious and 18 percent not-religious.
Western Europe and Oceania were the only regions where participants were split evenly, with half saying they were religious and the other half claiming they were not.
The research also found that those under 34 were generally more religious than those who were older. 66 percent of those under 34 said they were religious, comapred to 60 percent of older groups. The larger percent of religious youth indicates a future growth in religion, suggested Leger.
"With the trend of an increasingly religious youth globally, we can assume that the number of people who consider themselves religious will only continue to increase," he said.
Education also played a role in religious affiliation. 80 percent of those who completed only primary school were religious, and religious people made up a majority of all levels of education. In addition to education, wealth also had correlation with religion. Under 50 percent of individuals with medium high to high income were religious and about a quarter of the higher income participants were atheist. 70 percent of the individuals with lower income identified as religious and only about 5 percent considered themselves atheist.
