Pew survey, Moslem population trends and projections

“At the same time, many Muslim-majority countries will have aging populations; between 2010 and 2030, the share of people ages 30 and older in these countries is expected to rise from 40% to 50%, and the share of people ages 60 and older is expected nearly to double, from 7% to 12%. Muslim-majority countries, however, are not the only ones with aging populations. As birth rates drop and people live longer all around the globe, the population of the entire world is aging. As a result, the global Muslim population will remain comparatively youthful for decades to come.” 2011 Pew Report

 There are two aspects to Moslem demography. In the next generation the Moslem population will continue to grow. It will still be youthful compared to Western societies.  However after 2030 the falling fertility rates in the Moslem world will ensure a contracting, not an expanding population. As the Moslem world continues to urbanize and as Moslem women become better educated, the birth rate will continue to fall and mirror that of Western society.

The 2011 Pew survey concludes that the Moslem population will continue to grow in the next generation and increase by about 25 % or so worldwide to 2.2 billion, from about 1.6 or 1.7 billion currently. This growth rate is 2x that of the non-Moslem population. But beyond 2030 as detailed here, the Moslem fertility will have declined to levels comparable with that of Europe and Japan. Moslem demography in many Islamic states including Turkey and Iran will thankfully implode and contract.

The Pew Report, is based upon and supports UN world population statistics and forecasts as detailed here. By 2040 the Moslem world should experience a dramatic decline in population due to a lower than replacement rate in key Moslem areas including North Africa, the Middle East, a precipitous slowdown in birthrates in Pakistan and Indonesia.

Pew Report Executive Summary

The world's Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to new population projections by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades -- an average annual growth rate of 1.5% for Muslims, compared with 0.7% for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4% of the world's total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4% of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.

While the global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, the Muslim population nevertheless is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%, compared with the projected rate of 1.5% for the period from 2010 to 2030.

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...But Pakistan is expected to surpass Indonesia as the country with the single largest Muslim population. ...In the United States, for example, the population projections show the number of Muslims more than doubling over the next two decades, rising from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030, in large part because of immigration and higher-than-average fertility among Muslims. The Muslim share of the U.S. population (adults and children) is projected to grow from 0.8% in 2010 to 1.7% in 2030, making Muslims roughly as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the United States today....(See the Americas section of the full report for more details.)

In Europe as a whole, the Muslim share of the population is expected to grow by nearly one-third over the next 20 years, rising from 6% of the region's inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030. In absolute numbers, Europe's Muslim population is projected to grow from 44.1 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2030. ....See the Europe section of the full report for more details.) (See the section on Main Factors Driving Population Growth in the full report for more details. For a list of Muslim-majority countries and definitions for the terms less- and more-developed, see the section on Muslim- Majority Countries.)

Growing, But at a Slower Rate

The growth of the global Muslim population, however, should not obscure another important demographic trend: the rate of growth among Muslims has been slowing in recent decades and is likely to continue to decline over the next 20 years, as the graph below shows. From 1990 to 2000, the Muslim population grew at an average annual rate of 2.3%. The growth rate dipped to 2.1% from 2000 to 2010, and it is projected to drop to 1.7% from 2010 to 2020 and 1.4% from 2020 to 2030 (or 1.5% annually over the 20-year period from 2010 to 2030, as previously noted).

The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries, including such populous nations as Indonesia and Bangladesh.....(See the Related Factors section in the full report for more details.)

The slowdown in Muslim population growth is most pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa and Europe, and less sharp in sub-Saharan Africa. ...(For details, see the charts on population growth in the sections of this report on Asia-Pacific, Middle-East-North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Americas.)

Worldwide

• Sunni Muslims will continue to make up an overwhelming majority of Muslims in 2030 (87%- 90%). The portion of the world's Muslims who are Shia may decline slightly, largely because of relatively low fertility in Iran, where more than a third of the world's Shia Muslims live.

• As of 2010, about three-quarters of the world's Muslims (74.1%) live in the 49 countries in which Muslims make up a majority of the population. More than a fifth of all Muslims (23.3%) live in non-Muslim-majority countries in the developing world. About 3% of the world's Muslims live in more-developed regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

• Fertility rates in Muslim-majority countries are closely related to women's education levels. In the eight Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive the fewest years of schooling, the average fertility rate (5.0 children per woman) is more than double the average rate (2.3 children per woman) in the nine Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive the most years of schooling. One exception is the Palestinian territories, where the average fertility rate (4.5 children per woman) is relatively high even though a girl born there today can expect to receive 14 years of formal education.

• Fewer than half (47.8%) of married women ages 15-49 in Muslim-majority countries use some form of birth control. By comparison, in non-Muslim-majority, less-developed countries nearly two-thirds (63.3%) of all married women in that age group use some form of birth control.

Find the full report including interactive maps and sortable data tables at pewforum.org.