Like the US public as a whole, a rising share of Asian Americans are not affiliated with any religion, but many consider themselves close to one or more religious traditions for reasons such as family or culture, according to a new survey.
There are large differences in religious affiliation among Asian Americans depending on their ethnic origin group, according to a new Pew Research Center survey exploring religion among Asian American adults.
Indian Americans are far more likely than the other large Asian origin groups to be Hindu (48%), though a fair number of Indian Americans are Christian (15%), Muslim (8%) or Sikh (8%).
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60% of South Asians in the United States other than Indian Americans (i.e., those who trace their origins to countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan) are Muslim – higher than any of the six largest Asian origin groups.
The survey shows that 40% of Asian Americans say they feel close to some religious tradition for reasons aside from religion.
For example, just 11% of Asian American adults say their religion is Buddhism, but 21% feel close to Buddhism for other reasons, such as family background or culture.
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Here are some key findings of the nationally representative, multilingual survey of 7,006 Asian American adults conducted by the Pew Research Center from July 5, 2022, to Jan 27, 2023.
- Today, 32% of Asian Americans are religiously unaffiliated, up from 26% in 2012.
Christianity is still the largest faith group among Asian Americans (34%). - But Christianity has also seen the sharpest decline, down 8 percentage points since 2012.
Asian American Christians are about evenly split between Catholics and Protestants (17% and 16% of all US Asian adults, respectively). Born-again or evangelical Protestants make up 10% of Asian Americans. - Buddhists and Hindus each account for about one in ten Asian Americans, while Muslims make up 6%.
- Various other religious groups (including Daoists, Jains, Jews, Sikhs and others) together make up about 4% of all Asian American adults.
- 12% of Asian Americans neither identify with, nor feel close to, any of the religions or philosophical traditions measured in the survey
The survey also asked Asian Americans how important religion is in their lives (31% say it is very important), how often they attend religious services (29% report that they go at least monthly), and whether they have an altar, shrine or religious symbol that they use for home worship (36% say they do).
Of the major Asian American religious groups, Protestants and Muslims are the most likely to report that they attend religious services at least once a month.
By contrast, Buddhists and Hindus are especially likely to say they worship at shrines or altars in their homes.
About three in ten Asian Americans (29%) say they attend religious services or go to a temple, shrine or other religious space at least once a month, including 21% who say they do so weekly or more often.
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Asian American Christians and Muslims are more likely than Asian American Buddhists, Hindus or “nones” to say they attend religious services at least monthly.
Overall, foreign-born Asian Americans are more likely than those born in the US to attend religious services at least monthly (32% vs. 21%).
Using an altar, shrine or other religious symbol for worship in the home is most common among Vietnamese and Indian Americans, in part because this is a relatively common practice among Buddhists (who make up 37% of the Vietnamese American population) and Hindus (who make up 48% of the Indian American population).
For example, about half of Asian American Protestants (53%) say they attend religious services monthly but don’t worship at a home altar.
About half of Buddhists (51%) and Hindus (52%) say the opposite: They do not attend religious services monthly, but they do worship at a home altar.
Sizable numbers of Asian American Catholics (29%) and Hindus (27%) engage in both practices, attending religious services monthly and worshipping at a home altar or shrine.
Many people, including those who are religiously unaffiliated, expressed a cultural connection to the dominant religious tradition in their country of origin, according to the report.
This sentiment was also apparent in the survey results, which show, for example, that Indian Americans who are religiously unaffiliated say they feel close to Hinduism aside from religion at much higher rates than do religious “nones” of other Asian origin groups.
For some non-Christians, feeling close to Christianity is an unavoidable result of living in the United States, according to the report.
One Indian American focus group participant who grew up in the US and is not Christian, but who said she considers herself close to Christianity, explained, “My whole life I was exposed to Christmas and all this stuff. Even though I don’t believe in it, we had to give gifts … so it was always part of our culture, even though we don’t believe in it.”
In the survey, 34% of religiously unaffiliated US Asian adults (representing 18% of Asian Americans overall) said they feel close to Christianity even though they do not identify as Christians.
Some participants in these conversations said there is a natural affinity or closeness between certain pairs of religions that have shared beliefs, values or practices.
For example, a Hindu participant expressed a personal connection to Buddhism “because some of the practices of Buddhists, they are very much similar to [Hindu practices].”
And a Muslim participant drew parallels between Islam and Christianity, saying “in Islam and in Christianity there’s a lot common.”