Friday, May 2, 2014

That Old Time Religion: the Ghana - China Continuum

Based on a 2012 survey asking people if they were religious or not, you can see quite a lot of variation between different countries.  In none of the surveyed countries did <11% of the population say they were religious but China and Japan came close.  Only 14% of the Chinese and 16% of the Japanese identify as religious.  In fact, almost half of the Chinese (47%) and almost a third of the Japanese (31%) identify as atheists.

On the other hand, 90% or more of the population report being religious in Ghana (96%), Nigeria (93%), Armenia (92%), Fiji (92%), and Macedonia (90%).  The US is in the middle of the pack with 60% of Americans reporting they are religious.

The survey found that as per capita income increases, religiosity declines.

No comments: