Most international migrants today are Christian, study finds

While Christians make up 30% of world's population, they are almost half -- 47% -- of international migrants today, Pew finds.

Most migrants are Christian, a Pew Research study has found.

Christians make up 47% of people in the world who live outside their country of birth. The world’s population is 30% Christian.

Pew based its report on United Nations data and 270 censuses and surveys from 2020, the latest year for which statistics are available. It said that more than 280 million people, or 3.6% of the world’s population, are international migrants.

Muslims come in second, in terms of the religion of international migrants. In the study, followers of Islam accounted for 29% of all living migrants. Hindus came in a 5%, Buddhists 4%, and Jews 1%.

Those who say they have no religion, or who identify as atheist or agnostic represented 13% of all the people who have left their country of birth and are now living elsewhere, Pew reported.

And, if it seems like there is more migration today than in times past, there’s something to that. Pew found that over the past three decades, the total number – or stock – of people living as international migrants has increased by 83%.

Compare that to global population growth over the same time period, which is 47%.

The study also found that Mexico is the most common origin country for Christian migrants, and the United States is their most common destination.

“Many migrants have moved to escape religious persecution or to live among people who hold similar religious beliefs,” Pew said. “Often people move and take their religion with them, contributing to gradual changes in their new country’s religious makeup. Sometimes, though, migrants shed the religion they grew up with and adopt their new host country’s majority religion, some other religion or no religion.”

Migrants frequently go to countries where their religious identity is already prevalent, Pew said. While many Muslims have moved to Saudi Arabia and Jews have gone to Israel, Christians and religiously unaffiliated migrants have the same top three destination countries: the U.S., Germany, and Russia.

The Pew study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which seeks to understand global religious change and its impact on societies.