The Future of the Global Muslim Population
The
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life January 2011
Edited by Andy Ross


The world's Muslim population is expected to rise from 1.6 billion in 2010
to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to new population projections by the Pew
Research Center.
Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow
at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two
decades. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4% of the
world's total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4% of
the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.
The Muslim
population is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than
it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim
population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%, compared with the
projected rate of 1.5% for the period from 2010 to 2030.
If current
trends continue, 79 countries will have a million or more Muslim inhabitants
in 2030, up from 72 countries today. About 60% of the world's Muslims will
continue to live in the Asia-Pacific region and about 20% in the Middle East
and North Africa. Pakistan is expected to surpass Indonesia as the country
with the single largest Muslim population.
In the United States, the
population projections show the number of Muslims more than doubling over
the next two decades, rising from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in
2030.
In Europe, the Muslim share of the population is expected to
rise from 6% of the region's inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030, rising from
44.1 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2030. The greatest increases are
likely to occur in Western and Northern Europe.
As of 2010, about
three-quarters of the world's Muslims (74.1%) live in the 49 countries in
which Muslims make up a majority of the population. More than a fifth of all
Muslims (23.3%) live in non-Muslim-majority countries in the developing
world.
In the eight Muslim-majority countries where girls generally
receive the fewest years of schooling, the average fertility rate (5.0
children per woman) is more than double the average rate (2.3 children per
woman) in the nine Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive
the most years of schooling.
Fewer than half (47.8%) of married women
aged 15-49 in Muslim-majority countries use birth control.
AR We shall need to
educate a lot of women.


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