An international study on religion has revealed that the world's teenagers and young adults are much more religious than people think.
Crossing 21 nations, the Bertelsmann Stiftung's study surveyed 21,000 individuals to produce the most extensive and detailed comparative study on the significance of religion in the main cultures of the world.
Worldwide, more than four out of five young adults (85 per cent) are religious and almost half (44 per cent) are deeply religious. Only 13 per cent have no appreciation for God or faith in general.
However, there are large differences between individual countries and among the various denominations, the study found. Whereas young adults in Islamic states and developing countries in particular are deeply religious, young Christians in Europe especially are comparatively unreligious. For example, 80 per cent of all young Protestants outside of Europe are deeply religious and 18 per cent are religious, compared to just seven per cent of young Protestants in Europe who are deeply religious, and 25 per cent can only be classified as nominal members of their church.
The study found a similar picture with young Catholics. Although the proportion of deeply religious Catholics in Europe is 25 per cent, outside Europe this figure is 68 per cent. Only a third of young people in Eastern Europe and Russia have been christened, and most young people have no connection at all to faith and the Church. Only 13 per cent are deeply religious.
The study also revealed that a third of the young adults surveyed worldwide (35 per cent) who regard themselves as not belonging to a denomination nonetheless identified themselves as religious.
Religious practice
The diverging picture of the religiousness of young people in different countries and denominations is also reflected in their religious practices. Ninety per cent of young adults in devout countries such as Nigeria and Guatemala pray at least once a day, and three out of four of the respondents in countries such as India, Morocco and Turkey do likewise.
In contrast, daily prayer is no longer common practice among young Europeans. In France, just nine per cent of young adults pray daily, in Russia the figure is eight per cent and in Austria only around seven per cent.
The great exception among the Western industrialised countries is the United States. What is true for adults in the US also applies to the younger generation: there are many more religious people here than in most other Western countries, the study found. Fifty-seven per cent of young Americans say that they pray daily. The free-church and Pentecostal Protestants in the US are almost all religious, with almost 90 per cent deeply religious.
