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Demographics of atheism

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According to sociologist Phil Zuckerman, broad estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a deity range from 500 to 750 million people worldwide as of 2006. An earlier estimate stated that there were 200 million to 240 million self-identified atheists worldwide as of the year 2000, with China and Russia being major contributors to these figures. According to sociologists Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera's review of numerous global studies on atheism, there are 450 to 500 million positive atheists and agnostics worldwide (7% of the world's population) with China alone accounting for 200 million of that demographic as of 2013. Zuckerman, Galen and Pasquale estimated there were 400 million nonreligious or nontheistic people as of 2016. Relative to its own populations, Zuckerman ranks the top five countries with the highest possible ranges of atheists and agnostics: Sweden (46–85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43–80%), Norway (31–72%), and Japan (64–65%).

As of 2020, the majority (78%) of the global nonreligious or unaffiliated demographic resided in Asia-Pacific. China alone, whose government promotes atheism, makes up 67% of the global religiously unaffliated demographic. The remainder reside in Europe (12%), North America (5%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4%), sub-Saharan Africa (2%) and the Middle East and North Africa (less than 1%). The prevalence of atheism in Africa and South America typically falls below 10%. According to the Pew Research Center's 2012 global study of 230 countries and territories, 16% of the world's population is not affiliated with a religion, while 84% are affiliated. Furthermore, the global study noted that many of the unaffiliated, which include atheists and agnostics, still have various religious beliefs and practices.

Historical records of atheist philosophy span several millennia. The first occurrences of atheistic schools are found in Indian thought and have existed from the times of ancient Hinduism. Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct perspective on religious claims until the late Enlightenment.

Discrepancies exist among sources as to how atheist and religious demographics are changing. Questions to assess non-belief may ask about negation of the prevailing belief, rather than an assertion of positive atheism. Also, self-identification is not congruous to people's lack of beliefs automatically. For instance, merely not having a belief in a god, for whatever reason, does not automatically mean that people self-identify as an "atheist". According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012, 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015, and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists". Some global studies have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general.

Studies and statistics

Methodological issues

The demographics of atheism are difficult to quantify. Words like God and atheism seldom translate well across cultures or languages, and if they are there, they have variant meanings which make cross-cultural comparisons tenuous. So it can be hard to draw boundaries between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs. Furthermore, atheists may not report themselves as such, to avoid suffering from social stigma, discrimination, and persecution in some countries.

Because some governments have strongly promoted atheism and others have strongly condemned it, atheism may be either over-reported or under-reported for different countries. The accuracy of any method of estimation is debatable, as there are opportunities to misreport (intentionally or not) a category of people without an organizational structure. Also, many surveys on religious identification ask people to identify themselves as "agnostics" or "atheists", which is potentially confusing, since these terms are interpreted differently; some identify themselves as agnostic atheists. Additionally, many of these surveys only gauge the number of irreligious people, not the number of actual atheists, or group the two together. For example, research indicates that the fastest growing religious status may be "no religion" in the United States, but this includes all kinds of atheists, agnostics, and theists. According to the CIA World Factbook, non-religious people make up 9.66%, while one fifth of them are atheists.

Diversity

Statistics on atheism are often difficult to represent accurately for a variety of reasons. Atheism is a position compatible with other forms of identity including religions. Anthropologist Jack David Eller states that "atheism is quite a common position, even within religion" and that "surprisingly, atheism is not the opposite or lack, let alone the enemy, of religion but is the most common form of religion." Furthermore, he observes that "some atheists call themselves 'spiritual', and as we have shown above, atheism in its broadest sense does not preclude other religious concepts like nature spirits, dead ancestors, and supernatural forces." In many cultures, little conceptual or practical distinction is made between "natural" and "supernatural" phenomena and the very notions of "religious" and "nonreligious" dissolve into unimportance, especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in gods. For instance, in the Netherlands some people with lack of beliefs in gods do have a variety of beliefs in other supernatural entities or things.

Atheists are complex and not always devoid of religious or spiritual involvement. "Atheist churches" such as Sunday Assembly and others have emerged in multiple countries (e.g. USA, Britain, Australia) which deal with community needs that religious services often provide. Nontheistic religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, along with atheistic schools in Hinduism, and other Indian schools like Carvaka, Ajivika have played a significant part in Asian cultures for millennia.

Globally, some atheists also consider themselves Agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu, Jains, Taoist, or hold other related philosophical beliefs. Some, like Secular Jews and Shintoists, may indulge in some religious activities as a way of connecting with their culture, all the while being atheist. Therefore, given limited poll options, some may use other terms to describe their identity. Some politically motivated organizations that report or gather population statistics may, intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresent atheists. Survey designs may bias results by the wording of questions and the available response options. Statistics are generally collected on the assumption that religion is a categorical variable. Instruments have been designed to measure attitudes toward religion, including one that was used by L. L. Thurstone. This may be a particularly important consideration among people who have neutral attitudes, as it is more likely that prevailing social norms will influence the responses of such people on survey questions that effectively force respondents to categorize themselves either as belonging to a particular religion or as belonging to no religion. A negative perception of atheists and pressure from family and peers may also cause some atheists to disassociate themselves from atheism. Misunderstanding of the term may also be a reason some label themselves differently.

For example, a Canadian poll released 12 September 2011 sampled 1,129 Canadian adults and collected data on the numbers of declared atheists. These numbers conflicted with the latest Canadian census data that presupposed that a religious affiliation predisposed a belief in a deity and was based on a poorly worded question. A quote from the study:

The data also revealed some interesting facts about Canadians' beliefs:

  • 53% of Canadians believe in a god. What is of particular interest is that 28% of Protestants, 33% of Catholics, and 23% of those who attend weekly religious services do not.
  • 23% of those with no religious identity still believe in a God.

In 2023, Pew stated that 77% of self-identified "atheists" in the US do not believe in either a higher power or a god, while 23% of self-identified atheists do believe in a higher power of some kind, but not a god; with pew stating "not all self-described atheists fit the literal definition of “atheist”".

Out of all Americans who do not believe in a god, 5% identified as Catholic while 9% identified as Protestant and other Christian according to the 2007 Pew Religious Landscape survey. Out of all Americans who identify as unaffiliated including atheists and agnostics, 41% were raised Protestant and 28% were raised Catholic according to the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape survey.

Even when people directly claim not to believe in a deity, they still do not self-identify as "atheist". For instance, 41% of Norwegians, 48% of the French, and 54% of Czechs claimed not to believe in a deity, but only 10%, 19%, and 20% of those respondents, respectively, self-identified as "atheist". In the United States, only 5% of the population did not have a belief in a god and out of that small group only 24% self-identified as "atheist", while 15% self-identified as "agnostic" and 35% self-identified as "nothing in particular".

Though China has state atheism, 85% of the population practice various kinds of religious behaviors with some regularity.

In the Netherlands, beliefs of "convinced atheists" are quite diverse: 41.1% of them say they believe in telepathy, 21.1% in reincarnation, 13.3% in life after death, and 1.6% in heaven. The percentages on telepathy and reincarnation were similar to the percentages of "religious people" in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the author of the study notes, "Thus, despite the fact that they claim to be convinced atheists and the majority deny the existence of a personal god, a rather large minority of the Dutch convinced atheists believe in a supernatural power!"

A 2004 survey by the BBC in 10 countries showed the proportion of the population "who don't believe in God" to be close to 17% in the countries surveyed; however, 8% of the respondents specifically stated that they consider themselves to be "atheists". Diversity was observed in that "across the entire sample, almost 30% of all atheists surveyed said they sometimes prayed."

A study on global religiosity, secularity, and well-being, sociologists Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman note that it is unlikely that most atheists and agnostics do not believe in the gods based on a careful analysis of philosophical and scientific arguments alone, since science testing scores in societies where atheism or theism is widespread, can be just as poor and such societies can have widespread supernatural beliefs besides gods. Reviewing psychological studies on atheists, Miguel Farias noted that studies concluding that analytical thinking leads to lower religious belief "do not imply that that atheists are more conscious or reflective of their own beliefs, or that atheism is the outcome of a conscious refutation of previously held religious beliefs" since they too have variant beliefs such as in conspiracy theories of the naturalistic variety. In terms of apostasy, Farias notes that a greater proportion of people who leave religion do so for motivational rather than rational reasons and the majority of deconversions occur in adolescence and young adulthood when one is emotionally volatile. Furthermore, Farias notes that atheists are indistinguishable from New Age individuals or Gnostics since there are commonalities such as being individualistic, non-conformist, liberal, and valuing hedonism and sensation. According to Phil Zuckerman, the majority of atheists and other secular people who were raised with a religion, leave their religion and beliefs in their late teens or early twenties while a smaller proportion do so at a mature age.

A study on personality and religiosity found that members of secular organizations (like the international Center for Inquiry) have similar personality profiles to members of religious groups. This study found that members of secular organizations are very likely to label themselves primarily as "atheists", but also very likely to consider themselves humanists. It was also found that secular group members show no significant differences in their negative or positive affect. The surveyed individuals also had similar profiles for conscientiousness (discipline or impulse control, and acting on values like "pursuit of truth"). Secular group members tended to be less agreeable (e.g. more likely to hold unpopular, socially challenging views), as well as more open minded (e.g. more likely to consider new ideas) than members of religious groups. Luke Galen, a personality researcher, writes "Many previously reported characteristics associated with religiosity are a function not of belief itself, but of strong convictions and group identification." Catherine Caldwell-Harris notes that "non-believers" are interested in social justice concerns and posits that this is due to their lack of belief in an afterlife, leading to a focus on what can be fixed here and now. Another study by Caldwell-Harris describes atheists as being capable of experiencing awe, which she states debunks stereotypes of atheists as "cynical and joyless". A 2014 study created six different personality profiles of 'types' of nonbelievers and compared them to Big Five personality traits. In countries which have high levels of atheism such as Scandinavian nations, atheist organizations there generally have very low membership and only those that have links to a political party or offer legalized rituals have some noticeable membership.

According to William Bainbridge's international study, atheism is common among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also connected to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations.

In a global study on atheism, sociologist Phil Zuckerman noted that countries with higher levels of atheism also had the highest suicide rates compared to countries with lower levels of atheism. He concludes that correlations does not necessarily indicate causation in either case. A study on depression and suicide suggested that those without a religious affiliation have a higher suicide attempt rates than those with a religious affiliation. A study into mental well-being in religious and non-religious people found that mental well-being for both religious people and non-religious people hinged on the certainty of their belief, and that previous studies had not controlled for the effect of belonging to a group when studying churchgoers. Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi regarded atheists in Western society to be "much more likely to be a man, married, with higher education", and regarded the personality of atheists to be "less authoritarian and suggestible, less dogmatic, less prejudiced, more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, conscientious, and well educated. They are of high intelligence, and many are committed to the intellectual and scholarly life". A review of the literature found that being non-religious did not necessarily entail poorer mental health.

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