Among the 280 million immigrants worldwide, the proportion of Christians, Muslims and Jews is higher than in the overall population, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center published on Monday.
“You see that migrants who come to countries like the United States, Canada or other parts of Western Europe are more religious – and sometimes even more Christian – than the natives in those countries,” says Achsah Callahan, the study’s lead researcher.
While Christians make up about 30% of the world’s population, 47% of the world’s migrants are Christians, according to the latest data from 2020. The study found that Muslims make up 29% of the migrant population but 25% of the world’s population. Jews, who make up just 0.2% of the world’s population but 1% of migrants, are by far the religious group most likely to have migrated: 20% of Jews worldwide live outside their country of birth, compared to just 6% of Christians and 4% of Muslims.
According to Pew, migration has outpaced global population growth by 83 percent over the past 30 years.
Although the reasons for immigration are varied, including economic opportunity, reunification with family, or escaping violence or persecution, religion and migration are often closely linked, according to the report. U.S. migrants are much more likely to have a religious identity than the American-born population in general.
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The influx of religious migrants can have a significant impact on the religious composition of their destination countries. In the case of the United States, “immigrants are somewhat of a brake on secularization,” Callahan said.
While about 30 percent of people in the United States identify as atheists, agnostics, or religiously unaffiliated, only 10 percent of immigrants to the United States identify as such.
Pew examined data from 270 censuses and surveys and estimated the religious composition of migrants from 95,696 combinations of 232 origin and destination countries and territories. Their analysis focused on the “stock,” or the total number of people living as international migrants, rather than “flows,” or numbers measured over a period of time. This methodology allowed them to examine all adults and children living outside their country of birth, regardless of when they immigrated.
“We are not just interested in the religious composition of people who arrived in a destination country in the last year or the last five years,” Callahan explained. According to the report, measuring the total “stock” of migrants reflects slower changes, “patterns that have accumulated over time.”
The study found that migrants often move to countries where their religious identity is already represented and predominant. For example, Israel is the most popular destination for Jews, as it is home to 51% of Jewish migrants (1.5 million), while Saudi Arabia is the most popular destination for Muslims, as it is home to 13% (10.8 million). Christians and religiously unaffiliated migrants share the United States, Germany and Russia as their top three most popular destinations.
The majority of Christian migrants worldwide originate from Mexico and settle in the United States, according to Pew. They are typically looking for work, greater security or to be reunited with their families. Ten percent of the world’s Muslim migrants (8.1 million) were born in Syria and fled regional conflicts after war broke out in 2011.
The report attributes the high number of Jewish immigrants in part to Israel’s Law of Return, which automatically grants Jews Israeli citizenship and the right to make “aliyah,” or emigrate to Israel.
As of 2020, approximately 1.5 million Jews born outside Israel live within the country’s borders. Jewish migrants to Israel often come from former Soviet republics such as Ukraine (170,000) and Russia (150,000). The United States has the second highest population of Jewish migrants (400,000), with a quarter coming from Israel.
Overall, however, Callahan said, immigration numbers for all religious groups have remained relatively stable over time. Despite consistent numbers, she advocated for this study because of the popularity of a 2012 Pew report, Faith on the Move. The two studies used different methodologies, and Callahan described Faith on the Move as a “snapshot” of religion and immigration in 2010.
“Many people have asked for an update, and we get a lot of questions about religion and migration,” she said. Despite demand for the data, “Faith on the Move was actually the last report we published that focused on this issue.”
Many of the findings in the new report are similar to those in the 2012 study, and Callahan found the results relatively unsurprising.
“Even in these older data, you can see that religious minorities are much more likely to leave their country of origin and emigrate to a country where their religious identity is stronger,” she said.
Chloë-Arizona Fodor is a reporter at Religion News Service.
