New Delhi: One-in-three Asian Americans (32 percent) is religiously unaffiliated in the US, a new survey by Pew Research Center has found.
This is an increase from 2012, when a survey by the US-based think tank had found that 26 percent of Asian Americans were religiously unaffiliated.
The latest survey, published Wednesday, was conducted among 7,006 Asian adults, between 5 July, 2022, and 27 January, 2023.
It found that the number of individuals identifying as Christians had dropped from 42 percent in 2012 to 34 percent in 2022-23, but still accounted as the largest faith group among Asian Americans.
About 17 percent of Asian American Christians identify as Catholics, while 16 percent identify as Protestants, showing an almost even split.
Buddhists and Hindus account for about one-in-ten Asian Americans, while Muslims account for 6 percent. Various other religious groups — including Jews, Sikhs and Jains — make up about 4 percent of all US Asian adults, according to the survey report.
Further, three-in-ten (31 percent) US Asian adults stated that religion was “very important” in their lives while an almost similar number (29 percent) attended religious services at least monthly. Up to 36 percent of Asian Americans have an altar, shrine or religious symbol that they use at home for worship, the report said.
The number of religiously-unaffiliated Asian Americans was found similar to that of the US public as a whole, where 29 percent of all adults described themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity, according to a Pew survey of the religious composition of the US published in 2021.
The 2022-2023 survey was conducted in six languages — Chinese, English, Hindi, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.
“The survey includes a large enough sample to report on the views of the six biggest origin groups among Asian Americans: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Together, these six groups constitute 81 percent of all U.S. Asian adults,” its report noted.
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Hinduism among Asian Americans
Up to 11 percent of Asian Americans identify as Hindus, about the same number as 2012. Also, 48 percent of Asian Americans who identify as Indian in origin are Hindu by religion, the survey found.
Further, a third of Hindu Asian Americans believe religion is very important in their lives, while 38 percent say it is somewhat important. One-in-three Hindu Asian Americans attend religious services every month or more often.
Of all the religious groups analysed in the Pew survey, Hindus, at 79 percent, are the most likely to state that they use an altar, shrine or religious symbol for worship at home, the report noted.
Four-in-ten Asian American Hindus also said that all or most of their friends were from the same religious background — which is significantly higher than any other Asian American population that reported uniformity in their social circle.
The survey report noted that 77 percent of Asian American Hindus are below the age of 50, making them one of the youngest demographic groups with a median age of 40.
Up to 92 percent of Asian American Hindus were born in a country other than the US — the highest share among any US Asian religious group born outside of the country, it said, adding that about 61 percent of Asian American Hindus have a postgraduate degree, which is double the figure of 29 percent among all Asian American adults.
Up to 44 percent of Asian American Hindus have a family income higher than $1,50,000 a year, compared to three-in-10 Asian Americans overall, according to the survey, and 75 percent of Asian American Hindus support or lean towards the Democratic Party compared to 62 percent of US Asian adults who said the same.
Religiously-unaffiliated Asian Americans
About half of all Japanese Asian Americans (47 per cent) and Chinese Asian Americans (56 per cent) described themselves as atheist, agnostic, or having no particular religion.
Further, 12 percent of US Asians said they had no connection to any of the religions or philosophical traditions measured in the report.
Up to 15 percent of Indian Americans surveyed said they were unaffiliated to any religion — the lowest among the six origin groups measured in the report, while 83 percent said they were affiliated to a religion.
Filipino and Vietnamese American adults are the highest number after Indian Americans to be affiliated to a religion, at 76 percent and 74 percent, respectively.
Religiously-unaffiliated Asian Americans are more likely to be below the age of 50 (73 percent), born in the US (38 percent) and lean towards the Democratic Party (71 percent) than the overall Asian American population, according to the survey.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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