Hinduism ties Buddhism as fourth-largest faith in the US

Fueled by immigration, America's Hindu population reached 2.23 million, an increase of about one million — or 85.8 percent — since 2007, making Hinduism the fourth-largest faith in the country, tied with Buddhism at a 0.7 percent share of the population.

The figures come from the Pew Research Center's "Religious Landscape Study", published in May 2015. The study itself gave only percentage shares, not headcounts; the 2.23 million figure was calculated by IANS by applying Pew's population proportions to census projections — up from about 1.2 million in 2007, when the US population was 301.2 million versus 318.88 million in 2014.

Pew said it may have underestimated the size of the Hindu population.

An earlier Pew report on the future of world religions projected that by 2050, Hindus would make up 1.2 percent of the US population and number 4.78 million — the fifth-largest Hindu population in the world.

Looking at the socio-economic profile of Hindus, the new Pew report said they had the highest education and income levels of all religious groups in the US: 36 percent of Hindus said their annual family income exceeded $100,000, compared with 19 percent of the overall population. And 77 percent of Hindus had a bachelor's degree, compared to 27 percent of all adults; 48 percent had a post-graduate degree.

Meanwhile, the Christian share of the US population fell from 78.4 percent in 2007 to 70.6 percent over the seven-year period — a decline of 7.8 percentage points, or about 11 million fewer Christians. "Christians remain by far the largest religious group in the United States, but the Christian share of the population has declined markedly," the report said.

Underlying the change, there was a marked increase in the number of people who say they have "no particular religion." About 23 percent of American adults fell into this category, up from 16 percent in 2007. Included in this broad category are atheists (3.1 percent of the total US population) and agnostics (4 percent).

The second-largest religion is Judaism, which accounts for 1.9 percent of the population. It is followed by Islam at 0.9 percent, up from 0.4 percent. Buddhism ties for fourth place with Hinduism at 0.7 percent.

The US census does not ask questions about religion. The Pew Research Center, an independent Washington-based organisation, surveyed more than 35,000 people across the US to fill this gap.

The rising trend of Hinduism in the US contrasts with that in India. The Pew report released in April said that the share of Hindus in the Indian population was expected to decline by 2.8 percent, from 79.5 percent in 2010 to 76.7 percent in 2050, even though their numbers were projected to grow to almost 1.3 billion by that year in a total Indian population of nearly 1.7 billion.

The report said most of the increase in the Hindu population came through immigration, not conversions: 87 percent are immigrants and nine percent are the children of immigrants. Only 10 percent of Hindus are converts, with Catholics and the unaffiliated each accounting for 3 percent.

Hindus are least likely to convert to other religions, according to the report: of all American adults who said they were raised as Hindus, 80 percent continued to adhere to Hinduism. Of those born Hindu who no longer identified as Hindu, 18 percent said they had no religious affiliation (a category that includes atheists and agnostics), and only one percent joined Christian Protestant sects.

Rajan Zed, the Nevada-based president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, attributed the high retention rate of Hinduism to "the focus on inner search, exploring the vast wisdom of scriptures and making spirituality more attractive to youth and children," as reported by IANS.

On the community's socio-economic profile, he told IANS: "The Hindu community in America is continuing with the traditional values of hard work, higher morals, stress on education, and sanctity of marriage amidst so many distractions."

These are the highlights of the Hindu community profile in the report:

• Hindus have the lowest divorce rate of only 5 percent.
• Hindus are least likely to marry outside their religion: 91 percent have a spouse or partner who is a fellow Hindu.
• The median age of Hindu adults is 33 years.
• Five percent of San Francisco's population is Hindu and three percent of New York City's.
• Most Hindus live in the West (38 percent) and the Northeast (33 percent).

An anomaly in the report is that 62 percent of Hindus are men and 38 percent women — a difference of 24 percentage points, which may be due to the pattern of immigration.

Figures: Pew Research Center — America's Changing Religious Landscape (May 2015) and Pew's Hindu profile in the Religious Landscape Study; headcount calculations by IANS.