KUALA LUMPUR — Muslims are expected to make up 72.4 per cent of Malaysia’s population in 2050, compared with only 63.7 per cent in 2010, showed the latest study by Washington-based pollster Pew Research Centre, which cites a high fertility rate among adherents as one of the key reasons behind the boom.

In numbers, this means there will be more than 32.7 million Muslims out of the projected 45.2 million population in 2050, compared with around 18 million out of 28.4 million in 2010.

The report titled The Future Of World Religions showed the number of Muslims in Singapore will also increase significantly, from 14.3 per cent in 2010 to 21.4 per cent in 2050, replacing Christianity as the city-state’s second-largest religion after Buddhism.

The rise in population share among Muslims and Hindus in Singapore will mostly be attributed to migration from Malaysia and India.

The report showed Malaysian Christians will stay at 9.4 per cent of the population in the next nearly 40 years, while all other religions will see their demographic share shrinking.

Malaysia’s Buddhists will see the biggest decline, dropping to an estimated 10.8 per cent of the country’s population in 2050, compared with 17.7 per cent in 2010.

“In many other countries with large Buddhist populations, the Buddhist population share is expected to decline in the decades ahead, because Buddhists tend to be older and have fewer children than non-Buddhists,” the report said.

The projected decline of Buddhist and Hindu populations stemmed mostly from their population growth rate. Malaysian adherents of the two faiths have two children or fewer in their lifetime, with a fertility rate of less than 2.1. In comparison, Malaysian Christians and Muslims have a fertility rate of between 2.5 and 3.49 on average.

The report pointed out that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, owing to its adherents’ comparatively youthful population and high fertility rates.

By 2050, the world’s Muslim population will increase from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.76 billion, or nearly one-third of the world’s projected population at that time, said the study.

In addition, the number of Muslims globally will be nearly equal to that of Christians, currently the biggest group, and is poised to take over as the world’s biggest by 2070.

“Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman — well above replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population,” said the report.

The report also pointed out that in 2010, Muslims had the biggest share of population younger than 15 at 34 per cent, compared with 30 per cent for Hindus and 27 per cent for Christians.

“These bulging youth populations are among the reasons (the Muslim population is) projected to grow faster than the world’s overall population, while Hindus and Christians will roughly keep pace with worldwide population growth,” suggested the report.

Despite that, the report projected that only three million people will convert from their religions to Islam, compared with the 61.5 million people who will leave their religions to become atheists, agnostics or unaffiliated — mostly from Christianity.

The unaffiliated population share, however, will shrink from 16 per cent to 13 per cent in the next 40 years as most of them are heavily concentrated in places with low fertility rates and ageing populations, such as Europe, North America, China and Japan.

MALAY MAIL