Demographics of atheism

The study of how atheism is distributed across populations and how its prevalence varies with geography, age, education, and other social characteristics.

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Atheism: The absence of belief in the existence of any god or gods. Demographic estimates depend on which meaning of atheism a survey uses.
Religious landscape study: A survey program by the Pew Research Center measuring religious identity, beliefs, and practices in the United States. Its repeated measures provide detailed estimates of nonreligious identity in the United States.
Religious affiliation: A person's stated identification with a religion or religious tradition. Affiliation can persist without belief, so it does not directly measure atheism.
Religious identity: A person's sense of belonging to a religious tradition or community. Identity can diverge from belief, complicating counts of atheists.
Religious disaffiliation: The process or state of leaving a religious identity or community. Many surveys group atheists with people who leave religious affiliation, though the categories differ.
World Values Survey: A cross-national research program measuring values, beliefs, and social attitudes through surveys. Its country comparisons allow researchers to examine nonbelief alongside social conditions.
Belief in God: A person's acceptance or rejection of the proposition that God or a god exists. Belief questions measure a different dimension from identity labels such as atheist.
Question wording effects: Changes in survey responses caused by differences in how questions are phrased or ordered. Small wording changes can shift reported levels of atheism and nonreligion.
Religious none: People who report no religious affiliation, including atheists, agnostics, and people with no particular religion. This broad survey category is often mistaken for a count of atheists.
European Values Study: A large-scale survey of values, beliefs, and social attitudes across European countries. Its repeated surveys track differences in religious belief and affiliation across Europe.