Demographics of Asian Americans - Religion

Religion

Asian Americans' religious preferences are wide ranging, and tends to be more diverse than among other races in the United States. The growth of Asian American immigration since 1965 has contributed to this diversity. Until recently, a dearth of scholarship regarding Asian American religious beliefs led to a stereotype that Asian Americans are not religious or spiritual. Although 59 percent of Asian Americans believe strongly in the existence of one or more gods exist, 30 percent identify as "secular" or "somewhat secular." Only 39 percent of Asian American households belong to a local church or temple, due to atheism or adherence to Eastern religions without congregational traditions.

Although no one religious affiliation claims a majority of Asian Americans, about 45 percent of them adhere to some form of Christianity. A Trinity College survey, conducted in 2008, found that 38 percent of Christian Asian Americans are Catholic; Filipino Americans are majority Catholic, and a significant minority of Vietnamese Americans are as well. The Trinity survey also found that of all demographic populations, Asian Americans had the highest number of respondents who did not claim a religion or refused to divulge their religious affiliation. Various surveys have put this number between 23 to 27 percent of Asian Americans. Additionally, the Trinity College survey found that 8% of Asian Americans are Muslim; many of these Muslim Asian Americans come from, or trace their ancestry to, the following nations: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan.

A Gallup poll conducted in 2010 found that Asian Americans were the group least likely to say that religion was important in their daily lives, although a 54 percent majority of respondents still said that religion was important in their daily lives. In 2012, a survey was conducted by the Pew Research Center of the Faiths of Asian Americans, it found that Christianity had the largest plurality (42%) of Asian American respondents, followed by those who were unaffiliated (26%). The three next largest faiths, of those who responded, were Buddhist (14%), Hindu (10%), and Muslim (4%).