More Hindus living with partners, divorce rates plunge for Muslims.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: That South Asian neighbor of yours next door could very well be single, especially if he or she is a Muslim or a Hindu, as 45% of Muslims and 32% of Hindus, respectively, have never been married in the United States, according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center, released earlier this month.
Those figures for the Muslim and Hindu religious community are a big jump or dip, whichever way you look at it, from the first such study done by Pew in 2007. Then, only 28% of the Muslims surveyed and 14% of the Hindus surveyed, were never married.
However, unlike the Muslim community and the Historically Black community, which are the only two religious denominations to have more people unmarried than married – only 41% of the Muslim community are married, versus 45% never married; and for Blacks it’s 31% married vs. 36% unmarried, the Hindus have the highest rate of marriage in the US – at 60%.
Also, it’s evident from the new data, which surveyed about 35,000 Americans, that once Hindus do get married, most tend to stay with their partner for a lifetime. The divorce rates amongst the Hindu community in the US stands at the lowest among other religious communities: 5%, a statistic which has remained unchanged from the 2007 study.
There is, however, a more liberal attitude towards marriage too though within the Hindu community, as 3% now live with a partner, without taking marital vows. In the previous 2007 study, that number stood at zero, for lack of data to prove otherwise.
The number of marriages have dipped significantly too in seven years, as in 2007, the study found 79% of Hindus were married. The new study has that number pegged back to 60%.
The dip in marriage rates is alarming for the Muslim community too: in 2007, 50% of the individuals surveyed were married. Now, that number has nosedived to 41%. When it comes to staying married, community leaders have something to cheer: in 2007, 15% of Muslims reported being divorced or separated. In 2014, that number has been winnowed down to 8%.
The Jewish community has remained the most steady when it comes to the rate of marriage. In 2007, they registered 57% as married, with only a percentage dip in the latest study, falling to 56%.
Hindus also are more likely than any other religious group to have a spouse or partner with the same religion (91%). Roughly 8 in 10 Mormons (82%) and Muslims (79%) who are married or living with a partner have a mate who shares their religion, as do three-quarters of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.
Hindus now comprise 0.07% of the U.S. population, vs. 0.04% in 2007. Muslims are slightly more in percentage, with 0.09% now.
The dip in marriage rates is seen across the religious communities. The share of evangelical Protestants, Catholics and religiously unaffiliated respondents who are married declined noticeably between 2007 and 2014. However, Mormons continue to be among the groups most likely to be married.
Religious intermarriage also appears to be on the rise: among Americans who have gotten married since 2010, nearly 4 in 10 (39%) report that they are in religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19% among those who got married before 1960.
The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population. Nearly 1 in 5 people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse, says the Pew report. By contrast, just 5% of people who got married before 1960 fit this profile.
1 Comment
I think there is a typo error. Hindus now form 0.7% of USA population as per Pew survey and not just 0.07%. Please correct the article. Actually, 0.7% also seems a low figure. It is simple math. Based on the immigrant data, about 150,000 Indians get Green Cards every year. Say, out of this 100,000 are Hindus. However, most of these are IT or professionals who have their children born in USA. So, actual rate of growth of Hindus is at least 150,000 per year. That is about a 1 million in 7 years and that too excluding the Hindus immigrating from Guyana, BanglaDesh, Indonesia, African nations etc. This rate is happening since about 2000 when the IT revolution started. So, Hindu population is likely to be at least 3 million. Then, there are equal number of 3 million Americans practicing Hinduism through Yoga, Jnana and Bhakti methods of Hinduism. I mean the Americans who who keep an Altar at their home with images of Hindu deities, and who practice yoga/meditation on a daily basis. So, ideally, the Hindu population in USA is about 2%. Jai Hind.