Overall, slightly more than half of Asian Americans “express a connection to Christianity” in the latest survey, either through direct affiliation or through family or culture.
Among the surveyed sub-demographics, Filipino Americans report the largest number of Christians, at 74%. Korean Americans report the next-largest share, at 59%; the Japanese and Chinese report the lowest shares, at 25% and 23%, respectively.
Among Filipinos, 57% identify themselves as Catholics. Just 5% of Chinese and 3% of Japanese identify as Catholics.
The numbers come as a growing share of Asian Americans identify themselves as “religiously unaffiliated,” mirroring steady increases in that category in the general American population in recent years.
In 2012 just 26% of Asian Americans identified as unaffiliated; the latest survey numbers say 32% claim that label.
Pew found that religiously unaffiliated Asian Americans tended to skew younger, to have been born in the U.S., and to vote Democratic compared with the broader Asian American population.
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