Almost 40 per cent (38.9 per cent) of Australia's population reported having no religion in the 2021 Census, an increase from 30 per cent (30.1 per cent) in 2016 and 22 per cent (22.3 per cent) in 2011. Other religions are growing but continue to make up a small proportion of the population.
Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Australia mostly through immigration. Hinduism is also one of the most youthful religions in Australia, with 34% and 66% of Hindus being under the age of 14 and 34 respectively. Hindu Temple in Melbourne.
Decline in Christian affiliation
The number of people affiliated with Christianity in Australia decreased from 12.2 million (52.1%) in 2016 to 11.1 million (43.9%) in 2021. This decrease occurred across most ages, with the largest decrease for young adults (18-25 years).
Forty-four per cent of Australians identify as Christian, down from 61 per cent a decade ago. The share of people ticking the “no religion” box grew from 22 per cent in 2011 to 39 per cent in 2021. The number of people in Australia who identify as Hindu surged by 55 per cent over the past five years.
While probably a smaller percentage of the population than 50 years ago, those taking their religion seriously cannot be ignored in any analysis of what is happening today. A recent National Church Life Survey (NCLS) revealed 14% of Australians said “religion was very important” to them, and 11% attend worship weekly.
More recent study published in 2022 by Pew Research Center, have found a retention rate among American Christians closer to 67%, and cited that the decline of Christianity is primarily due to people leaving Christianity and choosing to have no religious affiliation (rather than due to people converting to other ...
Almost 40 per cent of the Australian population reported having "no religion", the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says.
The institutional separation of state and religion means Australia is also usually described as a secular country. This is largely based on section 116 of the Australian Constitution which, among other things, prohibits the federal government from establishing a state church or religion.
America's Christian majority is shrinking, and could dip below 50% by 2070 The U.S.'s Christian majority has been shrinking for decades. A Pew Research Center study shows that as of 2020, about 64% of Americans identify as Christian. Fifty years ago, that number was 90%.
Along with the rest of the Western world, Australia has been affected by the widespread decline of religiosity in favour of more progressive secular values as that have lowered the number of professing Christians and a diversifying immigration intakes that have lowered the overall percentage that Christians comprise in ...
Hinduism has grown by 55.3 per cent to 684,002 people, or 2.7 per cent of the population.
Hinduism is Australia's fastest-growing religion. In the 2021 census, more than 684 thousand people identified as Hindu - a 55 per cent increase. The result is due to the arrival of a greater number of migrants from India and Nepal. Christianity remains the most common religion in Australia.
In the country's 2021 census, 38.9% of Australians (or 9,886,957 people) selected either "no religion" or specified their form of irreligion, almost nine percent higher (and 2,846,240 more people) than the 2016 census.
Hinduism had the most significant growth between 2006 and 2016, driven by immigration from South Asia. The growing percentage of Australia's population reporting no religion has been a trend for decades, and is accelerating.
Australia has been a secular country since federation. The Constitution of 1901 prohibits the Commonwealth government from interfering with the free exercise of any religion.
In 2011, Australian census data reported almost five and-a-half million Catholics, 25.3 per cent of the total population. By 2021, that number had gone down to just 20 per cent.
The most common category for Australians' belief in God is that they are believers, who believe now and always have (47%) and second are non-believers who don't believe in God and never have (26%).
For all of these reasons – psychological, neurological, historical, cultural and logistical – experts guess that religion will probably never go away. Religion, whether it's maintained through fear or love, is highly successful at perpetuating itself. If not, it would no longer be with us.
“There are growing numbers of atheists/agnostics in countries across the world,” said Dr Lanman. “Our recently completed 'Understanding Unbelief' programme looked beyond the stereotypes and helped to document some of the world's rich diversity in atheism and agnosticism.
Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia are said to have the fastest-growing Christian communities and the majority of the new believers are “upwardly mobile, urban, middle-class Chinese”.