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,…
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