A study reveals the name of the world's most dominant religion by 2070.
Published: Wed 26 Oct 2016, 9:06 AM
Updated: Wed 26 Oct 2016, 5:03 PM
The new report explores changes from 2010 to 2050 in size and distribution of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, folk religions, other religions and the unaffiliated.
While many people have offered predictions about the future of religion, these are the first formal demographic projections using data on age, fertility, mortality, migration and religious switching for multiple religious groups around the world.
The increase in followers of major religions will be, in large part, due to fertility rates and the size of youth populations in less secular nations.
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While the world's population is projected to grow 35 per cent before the middle of the century, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 73 per cent - from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion
By 2050, Muslims will be nearly as numerous as Christians, who are projected to remain the world's largest religious group at 31.4 per cent of the global population.
The researchers also said population growth was also helped by the fact Muslims did not have the problem of ageing populations unlike in the West - with the median age being 23 as opposed to 30 for the rest of the world.
In 2010, 34 per cent of the world's Muslim population was under 15 years old, while 30 per cent of Hindus and 27 per cent of Christians were also under 15.
The large youth demographic is among the reasons why the number of Muslims is projected to grow faster than the world's overall population. Hindus and Christians are expected to roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth, which is at 27 per cent.
All the remaining groups have smaller-than-average youth populations, and many of them have disproportionately high numbers of followers over the age of 59. In 2010, 11 per cent of the world's population was at least 60, but 20 per cent of followers of the Jewish faith were 60 or older.
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