FOR RELEASE DEC. 12, 2019 FOR MEDIA OR OTHER INQUIRIES: Stephanie Kramer, Research Associate Conrad Hackett, Associate Director of Research and Senior Demographer Anna Schiller, Communications Manager Haley Nolan, Communications Associate 202.419.4372 www.pewresearch.org RECOMMENDED CITATION Pew Research Center, Dec. 12, 2019, “Religion and Living Arrangements Around the World” 1 PEW RESEARCH CENTER About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. The Center conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. It studies U.S. politics and policy; journalism and media; internet, science and technology; religion and public life; Hispanic trends; global attitudes and trends; and U.S. social and demographic trends. All of the Center’s reports are available at www.pewresearch.org. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. © Pew Research Center 2020 www.pewresearch.org 2 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Acknowledgments This report was produced by Pew Research Center as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation. This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals. Find related reports online at pewresearch.org/religion. Research Team Stephanie Kramer, Research Associate Conrad Hackett, Associate Director of Research and Senior Demographer Alan Cooperman, Director of Religion Research Anne Fengyan Shi, Senior Researcher Jacob Ausubel, Research Assistant Jose Fuentes, Intern George Hayward, Intern Sara Hodgson, Intern Kabir Sandrolini, Intern Yunping Tong, Intern Editorial and Graphic Design Dalia Fahmy, Senior Writer/Editor Michael Lipka, Editorial Manager Aleksandra Sandstrom, Copy Editor Bill Webster, Senior Information Graphics Designer Communications and Web Publishing Stacy Rosenberg, Associate Director, Digital Travis Mitchell, Digital Producer Anna Schiller, Communications Manager Haley Nolan, Communications Associate Others at Pew Research Center provided valuable feedback on this report, including associate directors of research Gregory A. Smith, Neha Sahgal and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, as well as www.pewresearch.org 3 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Andrew Mercer, senior research methodologist. Gretchen Livingston, former senior researcher at Pew Research Center, also provided valuable guidance with this report. Philip Schwadel, professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent a year as a visiting researcher at Pew Research Center. The Center is grateful for his contributions to this report and other work. Pew Research Center also received valuable advice on this report from: Philip N. Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland; Laurie F. DeRose, assistant professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America; David C. Dollahite, Camilla E. Kimball Professor of Family Life at Brigham Young University; Sriya Iyer, university reader in economics and fellow of St Catharine’s College at the University of Cambridge; Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber, assistant professor of religion and society at the Boston University School of Theology; Luca Maria Pesando, assistant professor of demography at the Centre on Population Dynamics at McGill University; Beth S. Wenger, associate dean of graduate studies and Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania; and W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. While the analysis for this report was guided by our consultations with the advisers, Pew Research Center is solely responsible for the interpretation and reporting of the data. www.pewresearch.org 4 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Table of contents Overview ....................................................................................................................................................5 Sidebar: Measuring households from the individual’s perspective – why does it matter? ............ 14 Sidebar: Religious teachings on families and homes………………………………………………………........... 22 1. Household patterns by region ........................................................................................................... 25 Asia and the Pacific ............................................................................................................................. 28 Sub-Saharan Africa .............................................................................................................................. 31 Sidebar: Polygamy in laws and religion ............................................................................................ 36 Europe ................................................................................................................................................. 39 Latin America and the Caribbean ........................................................................................................ 43 The Middle East and North Africa ........................................................................................................ 46 North America ...................................................................................................................................... 49 2. Household patterns by religion ......................................................................................................... 52 Christians............................................................................................................................................. 55 Muslims ............................................................................................................................................... 59 Religiously unaffiliated ........................................................................................................................ 63 Hindus ................................................................................................................................................. 68 Buddhists ............................................................................................................................................ 72 Jews ..................................................................................................................................................... 76 Sidebar: Studies often show links between religion and family life................................................ 79 3. Household patterns by age and gender ............................................................................................ 81 Living arrangements of children .......................................................................................................... 82 Living arrangements of people 60 and older ...................................................................................... 85 Experiences of men and women ......................................................................................................... 89 Appendix A: Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 94 Appendix B: Data sources by country ................................................................................................. 113 Appendix C: Household structure by religious group……………………………………………………………… 121 www.pewresearch.org 5 PEW RESEARCH CENTER Our households – who lives with us, how we are related to them and what role we play in that Muslims and Hindus live in biggest households shared space – have a profound effect on our daily experience of the world. A new Pew Average individual resides in a household of ___ people 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- Source: Pew Research Center analysis of 2010-2018 census and Saharan Africa and smaller ones in Europe. survey data. See Methodology for details. “Religion and Living Arrangements Around the World” Buddhists (3.9), Jews (3.7) and the religiously PEW RESEARCH CENTER 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? This report looks at households from the perspective of an average person, rather than an average household. While it is possible to calculate statistics either way, researchers chose the individual perspective because it better captures the lived experience of most people. Consider two homes, one with a family of nine people, the other with a sole resident. The two households contain a total of 10 people, so the average household size is five. But most of the individuals in these two homes – nine out of 10 – live with more than five people. In fact, in this simple example, the average individual resides in a household of 8.2 people. (Here’s the math: Nine individuals, each living among