Despite the increase, men continue to account for the vast majority of attendees at Friday prayer services at most U.S. mosques. Men make up the majority of Jumah prayer attendees in 94% of mosques, and there were no mosques in which men make up fewer than three-in-ten attendees at Friday prayer. The survey also found that while 44% of mosques have no children at the Friday prayer service (which typically happens during the school day), children were present in 55% of mosques.

The relatively small share of women among Friday mosque congregants aligns with results from previous Pew Research Center surveys of Muslim American adults. The Center’s most recent study, conducted in 2017, found that Muslim women were less likely than men to attend religious services at a mosque each week (37% vs. 48%), and less likely to say they were satisfied with the quality of mosques where they live (67% vs. 78%) – despite being no less likely to pray all five daily prayers (45% vs. 39%).

Source: Pew Research Center

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that U.S. adults overwhelmingly say houses of worship should be required to follow the same rules about social distancing and large gatherings as other organizations or businesses in their local area. About eight-in-ten Americans (79%) take this position, four times the share who think houses of worship should be allowed more flexibility than other kinds of establishments when it comes to rules about social distancing (19%).

On this question, Americans seem to align with two recent Supreme Court orders, which rejected lawsuits claiming that state restrictions on worship violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. At the same time, many state and local governments have carved out exemptions for religious institutions from pandemic-related restrictions.

Among U.S. Christians, about three-quarters say churches should be subject to the same rules as other businesses. Evangelical Protestants express the most support for giving houses of worship more flexibility, but even in this group, a 62% majority says houses of worship should be held to the same standards as other businesses and organizations (see Chapter 1 for more details). And while Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party are substantially more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say houses of worship should be required to follow the same social distancing rules as other organizations, a two-thirds majority of Republicans also express this view.

In addition, amid reports that some clusters of the virus have been tied to religious gatherings, many Americans who regularly attend religious services express support for instituting a variety of restrictions and modifications at their own places of worship. At the time the survey was conducted (July 13 to 19), only 13% said their house of worship should be open to the public just as it was before the outbreak

More than eight-in-ten attenders think their own congregation should either be closed altogether (28%) or open only on a modified basis (57%), with this latter group broadly endorsing precautions such as requiring people to stay 6 feet away from each other (51%), requiring masks (44%), limiting the number of people in attendance at any one time (41%) and limiting communal singing (29%).

Source: Pew Research Center

Our households – who lives with us, how we are related to them and what role we play in that shared space – have a profound effect on our daily experience of the world. A new Pew Research Center analysis of data from 130 countries and territories reveals that the size and composition of households often vary by religious affiliation.

Worldwide, Muslims live in the biggest households, with the average Muslim individual residing in a home of 6.4 people, followed by Hindus at 5.7. Christians fall in the middle (4.5), forming relatively large families in sub-Saharan Africa and smaller ones in Europe. Buddhists (3.9), Jews (3.7) and the religiously unaffiliated (3.7) – defined as those who do not identify with an organized religion, also known as “nones” – live in smaller households, on average.

Why study households from an individual’s point of view?

Household size is one easy way to compare the lived experiences of people around the world. Bigger households are common in less-developed countries, where people tend to have more children and families share limited resources. Smaller households are prevalent in wealthier countries, which tend to have aging populations and lower birth rates.

But the number of people in any given household is only one dimension of living arrangements. Since households of the same size can be so qualitatively different from each other – a three-person household might consist of a couple and one child, a child with a parent and grandparent, a husband and two wives, or numerous other combinations – understanding the distribution of various types of households also is valuable.

Globally, the most common household type is the extended family, accounting for 38% of the world’s population. But some religious groups are more likely to live in extended families than others. Hindus are the only major group in which a majority lives with extended family, such as grandparents, uncles and in-laws. Muslims, Christians and Jews are more likely to reside in two-parent households, composed of two partners with one or more minor children. Living alone is unusual among all religious groups, but it is more common among Jews than among the world’s other major religions: About one-in-ten Jews worldwide are in solo households. From a global perspective, Jews also are much more likely than non-Jews to live in households consisting of a couple without children or other relatives.

Source: Pew Research Center

In this podcast, we speak with Dr. Katayoun Kishi, who oversaw the ninth in a series of reports by Pew Research Center analyzing the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices. We discuss the findings of the report as well as methodology for collecting and analyzing data. Dr. Kishi summarizes findings for different regions of the world–including the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa–and she explains long-term trends evident from Pew’s reports.

To measure global restrictions on religion in 2016–the most recent year for which data are available–the study ranks 198 countries and territories by their levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion. The new study is based on the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.

Source: Religious Studies Project

For the first day of the 116^th Congress, here are five facts about the religious affiliation of members of Congress:

1) The religious composition of the new Congress is very different from that of the U.S. adult population. While the number of self-identified Christians in Congress has ticked down slightly, Christians as a whole – and especially Protestants and Catholics – are still overrepresented in proportion to their share in the general public. But by far, the largest difference between the U.S. public and Congress is in the share of people who are unaffiliated with a religious group. In the general public, 23% say they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” In Congress, just one person says she is religiously unaffiliated – Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who was recently elected to the Senate after three terms in the House.

2) While Congress remains overwhelmingly Christian, the number of non-Christian members has risen to 63. Most non-Christian members of Congress are Jewish (34), but there are also two Buddhists, three Muslims, three Hindus, two Unitarian Universalists, one unaffiliated member and 18 who decline to specify a religious affiliation. Only two of the non-Christians – Jewish Reps. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., and David Kustoff, R-Tenn. – are Republicans. The rest are Democrats.

3) The largest change in the new Congress comes in the “unspecified/other” Protestant category, which gained 16 seats. (“Unspecified/other” Protestants include those who say they are Christian, evangelical Christian, evangelical Protestant or Protestant, without specifying a denomination.) Presbyterians and Anglicans/Episcopalians lost the most seats in the new Congress, with each losing nine.

4) There are fewer Christians in the incoming freshman class than there are among incumbents. In the new Congress, 96 freshmen will join 438 incumbents: the largest freshman class since 2011, when the 112th Congress was sworn in. While the share of Christians among the freshman class is still higher than among the general public (81% vs. 71%), it is lower than the share among incumbents (90%). Among the new members are the first two Muslim women in Congress, Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

5) Both chambers of Congress have roughly similar shares of Christians and non-Christians. But within those categories, there are some differences, particularly with regard to Catholics, who make up 32% of the House, but just 22% of the Senate. Additionally, all of the Muslims, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists are in the House.

Source: Pew Research Center

The high education levels of U.S. Hindus and Muslims are in stark contrast to the schooling levels of those populations worldwide, where they are the two least educated of all religious groups, with just 5.6 years of schooling on average. The Pew data underscore how U.S. policies and world migration patterns have produced a highly selective representation of the two immigrant groups. “Hindus and Muslims in the United States are a pretty elite segment of the global Hindu and Muslim population,” says Conrad Hackett, a Pew demographic researcher.

In both cases, they are generally newcomers. Nearly nine out of ten Hindus in the United States and two out of every three Muslims were born outside the country, according to Hackett. With their relatively high levels of education, they qualify for higher paying positions. As immigrants, their experiences challenge the stereotype of foreign-born workers competing with native-born workers for low-skill, low-wage jobs.

The contrast between high Hindu and Muslim schooling levels in the United States and their low levels worldwide, meanwhile, suggests that the U.S. story is unique. “A lot of people, when they look at Asian Americans and their relative success, say there’s something about Asian culture,” notes Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist and immigration expert at the University of California, Riverside. “[But] if you look at culture in Asia, it doesn’t predict the same level of success. So we have to look for answers elsewhere.” The answers largely lie in the unique U.S. immigration experience of Muslims and Hindus, almost all of whom have come from distant countries in the Middle East and South Asia.

“They’ve had to travel to the United States, perhaps at considerable cost,” notes Hackett, meaning they are likely to be among the most privileged part of the population in their native countries. In this regard, their situation is different from that facing immigrants from Mexico or Central America, who can move to the United States more easily, with or without immigration papers. Without the option of being able to come illegally across the southern U.S. border, Hackett notes, Muslim and Hindu immigrants “have to deal with U.S. migration policies, which in many cases favor people who have skills that they have acquired through considerable education.”

The Muslim and Hindu immigrants to the United States leave behind the more poorly educated segment of their religious groups, who can’t afford to immigrate or don’t qualify for immigrant visas. The Hindu and Muslim stories contrast with that of Jews, who according to the Pew survey are well-educated wherever they are found. Worldwide, Jews have an average of 13.4 years of schooling, compared with 14.7 years for U.S. Jews. (Christians worldwide have 9.3 years of schooling on average, while U.S. Christians have 12.7 years.)

The disparity in schooling levels between Hindus and Muslims worldwide and those in the United States may be diminishing, however. The Pew study found education for Hindus and Muslims is improving around the world, with especially notable gains for Hindu and Muslim women.

Source: National Public Radio (NPR)

Currently, 55% of U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, including 46% who see it as more of a religious holiday than a cultural holiday and 9% who celebrate Christmas as both a religious and a cultural occasion. In 2013, 59% of Americans said they celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday, including 51% who saw it as more religious than cultural and 7% who marked the day as both a religious and a cultural holiday.

To be sure, while the public’s commemoration of Christmas may have less of a religious component now than in the past, the share of Americans who say they celebrate Christmas in some way has hardly budged at all. Nine-in-ten U.S. adults say they celebrate the holiday, which is nearly identical to the share who said this in 2013. About eight-in-ten will gather with family and friends. And half say they plan to attend church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, little changed since 2013, the last time Pew Research Center asked the question.

Source: Pew Research Center

In recent years, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they regularly attend religious services has been declining, while the share of Americans who attend only a few times a year, seldom or never has been growing. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the main reason people regularly go to church, synagogue, mosque or another house of worship is an obvious one: to feel closer to God. But the things that keep people away from religious services are more complicated.

Among those who attend no more than a few times a year, about three-in-ten say they do not go to religious services for a simple reason: They are not believers. But a much larger share stay away not because of a lack of faith, but for other reasons. This includes many people who say one very important reason they don’t regularly attend church is that they practice their faith in other ways. Others cite things they dislike about particular congregations or religious services (for example, they haven’t found a church or house of worship they like, or they don’t like the sermons). Still others name logistical reasons, like being in poor health or not having the time to go, as very important reasons for not regularly attending religious services.

By their own description, those who cite reasons other than a lack of belief for avoiding church are a fairly religious group. About seven-in-ten identify with a religion (including six-in-ten who are Christian), and most say religion is either “very” or “somewhat” important in their lives. To be sure, they are not as religious as Americans who report going regularly to religious services. But by several standard measures, they are much more religious than those who say, “I am not a believer.”

Source: Pew Research Center

In 2007, 11% of Muslims identified as Republican. The share changed very little in surveys conducted by the Center in 2011 (11%) and 2017 (13%). Sizable shares of both Republican and Democratic Muslims are critical of the way both parties treat U.S. Muslims. Nearly six-in-ten Republicans (57%) and about half of Democrats (47%) say neither party is friendly toward Muslims in America.

This criticism may be one reason a relatively large share of Muslims neither identify with nor lean toward either party. Indeed, U.S. Muslims are twice as likely as the public overall to say they lean toward neither major political party (20% vs. 9%).

In some ways, U.S. Muslims who identify as Republicans are demographically similar to Muslims who are Democrats. For instance, similar shares in both groups are under age 40 (58% vs. 60%) and are immigrants (52% vs. 57%)…

Source: Pew Research Center

Most U.S. adults identify with a particular religious denomination or group. They describe themselves as Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Jewish, Mormon or Muslim– to name just a few of the hundreds of identities or affiliations that people give in surveys. Others describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or say they have no particular religious affiliation. These are the conventional categories into which Americans sort themselves. But a new Pew Research Center analysis looks at beliefs and behaviors that cut across many denominations – important traits that unite people of different faiths, or that divide people who have the same religious affiliation – producing a new and revealing classification, or typology, of religion in America.

The new typology sorts Americans into seven groups based on the religious and spiritual beliefs they share, how actively they practice their faith, the value they place on their religion, and the other sources of meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

Race, ethnicity, age, education and political opinions were not among the characteristics used to create the groups. Yet some of the groups have strong partisan leanings or distinctive demographic profiles, illuminating the intrinsic connections between religion, race and politics in America.

Sunday Stalwarts are the most religious group. Not only do they actively practice their faith, but they also are deeply involved in their religious congregations. God-and-Country Believers are less active in church groups or other religious organizations, but, like Sunday Stalwarts, they hold many traditional religious beliefs and tilt right on social and political issues. They are the most likely of any group to see immigrants as a threat. Racial and ethnic minorities make up a relatively large share of the Diversely Devout, who are diverse not only demographically, but also in their beliefs. It is the only group in which solid majorities say they believe in God “as described in the Bible” as well as in psychics, reincarnation and spiritual energy located in physical things.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Solidly Secular are the least religious of the seven groups. These relatively affluent, highly educated U.S. adults – mostly white and male – tend to describe themselves as neither religious nor spiritual and to reject all New Age beliefs as well as belief in the God of the Bible…

Continue reading at: Pew Research Center