Though Christianity was the largest religion in 2020, Islam overtook it as the fastest-growing, according to Pew Research Center. The religiously unaffiliated also increased globally.

Despite a rise to 2.3 billion, analysis of over 2,700 censuses and surveys indicates the global Christian population share decreased by 1.8% to 28.8%, while the Muslim share grew to 25.6%.

“It’s just striking that there was such dramatic change in a 10-year period,” Pew’s Conrad Hackett, the lead author of the report, told the Washington Post.

The growth of Islam is attributed to a younger population, higher fertility in some regions, and lower disaffiliation rates compared to other religions like Christianity.

A report from the Center highlights a significant demographic shift over a decade, as the Muslim population grew faster than any other major religion, rapidly approaching the size of the Christian population.

In 2010, Christianity was the largest religion with 2.2 billion adherents (31% of the global population), followed by Islam with 1.6 billion (23%). Fast forward to 2020, and the latter enjoyed substantive increases over Christianity.

Religiously unaffiliated individuals are projected to increase in number globally as well but decrease as a percentage of the total population, according to Pew Research Center. This forecast considers demographics and religious switching but acknowledges that unforeseen events could alter these trends. 

Previously, researchers anticipated a decrease in the unaffiliated population due to aging and lower birth rates. However, Hackett stated that the growth of this group, particularly those leaving Christianity, is due to individuals departing from religion.

For every young adult globally who converts to Christianity, three who were raised Christian leave the faith, according to the report’s lead author.

By 2050, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand will likely no longer have Christian majorities, with an estimated 106.1 million people anticipated to leave the faith, according to Global News.

Growing religious switching within Christianity has fueled a global increase in unaffiliated individuals.

“Sometimes we hear rumors of religious revival, and it’s certainly possible that in particular places religion could grow,” Hackett said. “But in this careful 10-year study that we’ve done, the broad trend is that in many places people are moving away from religion.”

Sub-Saharan Africa now holds the largest Christian population (31%), overtaking Europe in the last decade. “That’s the result of high fertility, youthfulness and rapid growth in general,” Hackett said, “as well as the aging, lower fertility and disaffiliation going on in Europe.”

A 2015 report anticipates Islam will surpass Christianity as the world's largest religion by 2050 if current trends hold. “The next step of our ongoing work in this project will be to do some demographic population projections to provide new estimates of exactly when they might converge,” Hackett concludes.

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