Islam is growing. But ageing and slowing.

Islam and demography: A waxing crescent

Islam is growing. But ageing and slowing. That will change the world

Islam and demography

ARE Muslims taking over the world, or at a minimum, transforming Europe into Eurabia? Whatever your hopes or fears for the future of the world’s religions, a report published this week has plenty to stoke them.

“The Future of the Global Muslim Population”, produced by the Pew Research Centre, a non-profit outfit based in Washington, DC, reckons Muslim numbers will soar from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030. In other words, from 23.4% to 26.4% of the global total. At the heart of its analysis is the ongoing effect of a “youth bulge” which peaked in 2000. In 1990 Islam’s share of the world’s youth was 20%; in 2010, 26%. In 2030 it will be 29% (of 15-to-29-year-olds). But the Muslim world is slowly heading towards paunchiness: the median age in Muslim-majority countries was 19 in 1990.

It is 24 now, and will be 30 by 2030. (For French, Germans and Japanese the figure is 40 or over.) This suggests Muslim numbers will ultimately stop climbing, but later than the rest of the world population. The authors call their calculations demographic, not political. Drawing on earlier Pew research, they say conversion is not a big factor in the global contest between Islam, Christianity and other faiths; the converts balance out. Nor do they assess piety; via the imperfect data of the United Nations, the European Union and national statistics, they aim simply to measure how many people call themselves Muslim, at least culturally, if asked. New numbers, they say, will change the world map. As Indonesia prospers, its birth rate is falling; South Asia’s remains very high. By 2030, 80m extra mouths in Pakistan will boost its Muslim numbers to 256m, ousting Indonesia (with 239m) as the most populous Islamic land. India’s Muslim minority will be nearly as large at 236m—though growth is slowing there too. And in 2030 India’s Muslims will still constitute only a modest 15.9% of that country’s swelling total, against 14.6% now.

The report asserts no causal link between Islamic teaching and high fertility rates, although it notes that poverty and poor education are a problem in many Muslim lands. In Muslim countries such as Bangladesh and Turkey, it observes, the lay and religious authorities encourage birth control. Better medical care and lower mortality boost poor-country population numbers too. Some bleak findings concern Nigeria, where Muslim numbers are seen rising to 117m in 2030 from 76m now, edging up from 47.9% to 51.5% of the population. Illiteracy among Nigerian women of child-bearing age is three times as high among Muslims (71.9%) as among others (23.9%). Two-thirds of Nigerian Muslim women lack any formal education; that goes for just over a tenth of their non-Muslim sisters. The fertility rate is between six and seven children per Muslim woman, versus five for non-Muslims. It is hard to prove that these factors are related, but they do seem to form a pattern.

Eurabian nights

The total Muslim share of Europe’s population is predicted to grow from 6% now to 8% in 2030: hardly the stuff of nightmares. But amid that are some sharp rises. The report assumes Britain has 2.9m Muslims now (far higher than the usual estimates, which suggest 2.4m at most), rising to 5.6m by 2030. As poor migrants start families in Spain and Italy, numbers there will rocket; in France and Germany, where some Muslims are middle-class, rises will be more modest—though from a higher base. Russia’s Muslims will increase to 14.4% or 18.6m, up from 11.7% now (partly because non-Muslims are declining).

The report takes a cautious baseline of 2.6m American Muslims in 2010, but predicts the number will surge by 2030 to 6.2m, or 1.7% of the population—about the same size as Jews or Episcopalians. In Canada the Muslim share will surge from 2.8% to 6.6%. How will liberal democracies accommodate such variety? The clarity of a written constitution may give America an advantage over many European countries, where unwritten custom has more sway. Jonathan Laurence, an Islam-watcher and professor at Boston College, thinks Europe could rise to the challenge, but failure is also easy to imagine. Europe’s Muslims should, by 2030, have become articulate and effective political bargainers. But with nativism on the march, it is also highly possible that Muslims will come to feel they have less in common with their fellow citizens than with their growing band of co-religionists elsewhere.

@ International

Muslim birth rate falls, population to grow more slowly

Muslim boys greet each other after attending Aidhil Adha prayers in Bhopal December 9, 2008. — Reuters pic

PARIS, Jan 27 — Falling birth rates will slow the world’s Muslim population growth over the next two decades, reducing it on average from 2.2 per cent a year in 1990-2010 to 1.5 per cent a year from now until 2030, a new study says. Muslims will number 2.2 billion by 2030 compared to 1.6 billion in 2010, making up 26.4 per cent of the world population compared to 23.4 per cent now, according to estimates by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The report did not publish figures for worldwide populations of other major religions, but said the United States-based Pew Forum planned similar reports on growth prospects for worldwide Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism. “The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries,” it said, noting the birth rate is falling as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to cities.

“Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades — an average annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent for Muslims, compared with 0.7 per cent for non-Muslims,” it said. The report, entitled The Future of the Global Muslim Population, was part of a Pew Forum program analysing religious change and its impact on societies around the world. It said about 60 per cent of the world’s Muslims will live in the Asia-Pacific region in 2030, 20 per cent in the Middle East, 17.6 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, 2.7 per cent in Europe and 0.5 per cent in the Americas. Pakistan will overtake Indonesia as the world’s most numerous Muslim nation by 2030, it said, while the Muslim minority in mostly Hindu India will retain its global rank as the third largest Muslim population.

Continued migration will swell the ranks of Europe’s Muslim minorities by one-third by 2030, to 8 per cent of the region’s inhabitants from 6 per cent, it said. Muslims in France will rise to 6.9 million, or 10.3 per cent of the population, from 4.7 million (7.5 per cent), in Britain to 5.6 million (8.2 per cent) from 2.9 million and in Germany to 5.5 million (7.1 per cent) from 4.1 million (5 per cent). The Muslim share of the US population will grow from 0.8 per cent in 2010 to 1.7 per cent in 2030, “making Muslims roughly as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the United States today,” the study said. By 2030, Muslims will number 2.1 million or 23.2 per cent of the population in Israel — including Jerusalem but not the West Bank and Gaza — after 1.3 million (17.7 per cent) in 2010. “The slowdown in Muslim population growth is most pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa and Europe, and less sharp in sub-Saharan Africa,” it said, while migration will accelerate it in the Americas through 2020.

While Muslim populations worldwide are still younger on average than others, “the so-called “youth bulge” — the high percentage of Muslims in their teens and 20s — peaked around the year 2000 and is now declining,” the study said. Sunni Muslims will continue to make up the overwhelming majority in Islam — about 87-90 per cent, the report estimated — while Shi’ite numbers may decline because of relatively low birth rates in Iran, where one-third of all Shi’ites live. The study saw a close link between education and birth rates in Muslim-majority countries. Women in countries with the least education for girls had about five children while those where girls had the longest schooling averaged 2.3 children.

The study said it counted “all groups and individuals who self-identify as Muslims,” including secular or non-observant people, without measuring levels of religiosity. It said measuring the impact of Islam on birth rates was difficult because “cultural, social, economic, political, historical and other factors may play equal or greater roles.” — Reuters