Faith on the Move: The Religious Affiliation of International Migrants is an ambitious new study from the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.
Prepared by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, it was published on 8 March 2012 in the form of a full report, sortable data tables and an interactive map. These can all be accessed from:
The study focused on the estimated 214 million people, equivalent to about 3% of the world’s population, who had migrated across international borders as of 2010 and were alive at that date. It thus deals with cumulative stocks of migrants, not with annual flows.
The research involved the compilation, largely through the efforts of Pew Forum research associate Dr Phillip Connor, of a global religion and migration database for 2010, from the perspective of both migrants’ country of origin and country of destination.
Data derived from a combination of censuses, surveys and proxy measures, mostly gathered in countries of destination (from which emigrant information had to be backwardly imputed).
For example, in the case of the UK as a country of origin, use was made of the official Annual Population Survey for 2010, the 2001 census, and the World Religion Database (co-published by Brill and Boston University).
Spatial statistics are provided at global and regional levels and for 231 individual countries, including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man (albeit the numbers for these two units are naturally very small). The UK results for 2010 are as follows:
UK AS COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
| Christian emigrants |
3,680,000 |
73.5% |
| Muslim emigrants |
100,000 |
2.0% |
| Hindu emigrants |
60,000 |
1.2% |
| Buddhist emigrants |
30,000 |
0.6% |
| Jewish emigrants |
120,000 |
2.4% |
| Other religious emigrants |
90,000 |
1.8% |
| Religiously unaffiliated emigrants |
930,000 |
18.6% |
| All emigrants |
5,010,000 |
|
In terms of absolute numbers, the UK appeared in the top ten of all countries for the following groups of emigrants: Christians (fourth position), Hindus (tenth), Jews (ninth), and religiously unaffiliated (fourth).
UK AS COUNTRY OF DESTINATION
| Christian immigrants |
3,500,000 |
54.3% |
| Muslim immigrants |
1,420,000 |
22.0% |
| Hindu immigrants |
390,000 |
6.0% |
| Buddhist immigrants |
190,000 |
2.9% |
| Jewish immigrants |
40,000 |
0.6% |
| Other religious immigrants |
380,000 |
5.9% |
| Religiously unaffiliated immigrants |
530,000 |
8.2% |
| All immigrants |
6,450,000 |
|
In terms of absolute numbers, the UK appeared in the top ten of all countries for the following groups of immigrants: Christians (seventh position), Hindus (eighth), Jews (fifth), all other religions except Buddhism and Islam (fifth), and religiously unaffiliated (seventh). Perhaps surprisingly for some, the UK did not feature in the top ten countries for Muslim immigration.
NET MIGRATION TO THE UK
| Christians |
– 180,000 |
| Muslims |
+ 1,320,000 |
| Hindus |
+ 330,000 |
| Buddhists |
+ 160,000 |
| Jews |
– 80,000 |
| Other religions |
+ 290,000 |
| Religiously unaffiliated |
– 400,000 |
| All |
+ 1,440,000 |
Assuming that these Pew estimates are broadly accurate (and it is conceded that some of the data in the report are ‘fuzzy’), then international migration had added 1,440,000 to the population living in the UK in 2010.
Net immigration particularly contributed to the growth of non-Christian faiths other than Judaism, and notably to the increase in UK Muslims. For Christians, Jews and people of no faith emigration took away more than immigration brought into the UK.
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