Pew survey: What migration reveals about religion in India

“Many more Muslims and Christians have left India than have moved there. People of other, smaller religions, like Sikhs and Jains, are also disproportionately likely to have left India,” Stephanie Kramer, a lead researcher of the analysis, told me.

More than 280 million people, or 3.6% of the world’s population, are international migrants.

As of 2020, Christians comprised 47% of the global migrant population, Muslims 29%, Hindus 5%, Buddhists 4% and Jews 1%, according to Pew Research Center’s analysis of UN data and 270 censuses and surveys.

The religiously unaffiliated, including atheists and agnostics, made up 13% of global migrants who have left their country of birth.

The migrant population in the analysis includes anyone living outside their birthplace, from babies to oldest adults. They could have been born at any time as long as they are still alive.

As far as India is concerned, the analysis found that the religious make-up of the population who have moved to India is much more similar to that of the country’s overall population.