CHECK WHAT RELIGION WILL HAVE THE LARGEST POPULATION IN TWENTY YEARS

NEW DELHI: More babies are born to Christian mothers than to anyone else currently, but in 20 years, the number of infants born to Muslim mothers will be higher, by a modest amount, according to new estimates released by the Pew Research Center, a US research body.
"Less than 20 years from now, the number of babies born to Muslims is expected to modestly exceed births to Christians", new Pew Research Center demographic estimates show.

That's because in recent years, as well as looking ahead, Christians have had and will have a disproportionately large share of the world's deaths because of their populations' relatively advanced age. By contrast, the relatively young population of Muslims has meant higher fertility rates as a whole across Muslim populations.

"Globally, the relatively young population and high fertility rates of Muslims lead to a projection that between 2030 and 2035, there will be slightly more babies born to Muslims (225 million) than to Christians (224 million), even though the total Christian population will still be larger," Pew said yesterday. By the 2055 to 2060 period, that birth gap between the two groups is expected to approach six million, with 232 million births among Muslims and 226 million births among Christians, it added.
 Pew's new estimates are in line with some of its earlier projections.

In 2015, it said that Muslims are projected to be the world's fastest-growing major religious group in the decades ahead. There are already "visible" signs this is happening Pew said yesterday.
"In the period between 2010 and 2015, births to Muslims made up an estimated 31% of all babies born around the world - far exceeding the Muslim share of people of all ages in 2015 (24%)," it said.
Two years ago, Pew said that by 2050 the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
"As a result, according to the Pew Research projections, by 2050 there will be near parity between Muslims (2.8 billion, or 30% of the population) and Christians (2.9 billion, or 31%), possibly for the first time in history," Pew said.
In another earlier report, Pew said that because they have the youngest median age (30) of all religious groups, Muslims are the fastest-growing such group in the world, and by 2050, India will be the country with the world's largest Muslim population, surpassing Indonesia.
Currently, Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population.