Pakistan will overtake Indonesia as the world’s most numerous Muslim nation by 2030 while the Muslim minority in mostly Hindu India will retain its global rank as the third largest Muslim population, suggests a report.
According to the new study, falling birth rates will slow the world’s Muslim population growth over the next two decades, reducing it on average from 2.2 per cent a year in 1990-2010 to 1.5 per cent annually from now until 2030.
The US-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says Muslims will number 2.2 billion by 2030 compared to 1.6 billion in 2010, making up 26.4 per cent of the world’s population compared to 23.4 per cent now, according to estimates.
The report did not publish figures for worldwide populations of other major religions, but said the Pew Forum planned similar reports on growth prospects for worldwide Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism.
“The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries,” it said, noting the birth rate is falling as more Muslim women are educated, living standards rise and rural people move to cities.
“Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades — an average annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent for Muslims compared with 0.7 per cent for non-Muslims,” it said.
The report said about 60 per cent of the world’s Muslims will live in the Asia-Pacific region in 2030, 20 per cent in West Asia, 17.6 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, 2.7 per cent in Europe and 0.5 per cent in the Americas.