Muslim Population Soars, Could be Majority in West Africa
By Henry Neondo
The Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow by nearly 60 per cent in the next 20 years, from 242.5 million in 2010 to 385.9 million in 2030 with the greatest growth expected to occur in North Africa. This is according to a new report released Thursday by the Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life on the size, distribution and growth of the Muslim population.
The rise in Muslim population is partly due to rising fertility rates, low HIV prevalence and declining emigration rates among countries dominated by Muslims.
Egypt, Algeria and Morocco currently have the largest Muslim populations (in absolute numbers) in the Middle East-North Africa.
By 2030, 17.6 per cent of the world’s Muslims are expected to be living in sub-Saharan Africa, up from 15 per cent in 2010.
The increase in the number of Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to be greater in the next 20 years than it was in the previous two decades.
From 1990 to 2010, the number of Muslims in the region increased by about 103 million. In the next 20 years, the number of Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase by about 143 million.
During the 1990s, sub-Saharan Africa’s non-Muslim population grew at a slightly faster rate than the Muslim population.
From 2000 to 2010, however, Muslim population growth in the region surpassed the growth of the non-Muslim population, largely because of Muslims’ higher fertility rates.
From 2010 to 2030, the growth rate of sub-Saharan Africa’s Muslim population is expected to more closely mirror the growth rate for non-Muslims in the region.
West Africa is the only sub-region in sub-Saharan Africa with a Muslim majority. In contrast, the southern part of Africa has the smallest Muslim population.
The number of Muslims in West Africa is projected to increase by more than 60% in the next 20 years, from nearly 160 million in 2010 to about 257 million in 2030.
The most populous country in West Africa is Nigeria, which has the largest Muslim population in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Various surveys give differing figures for the size of religious groups in Nigeria, which appears to have roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians in 2010. By 2030, Nigeria is expected to have a slight Muslim majority (51.5 per cent).
Nigeria’s Muslim population is expected to increase by more than 41.1 million from 2010 to 2030, rising from 75.7 million in 2010 to 116.8 million in 2030. This is by far the largest projected increase in sub- Saharan Africa.
Of the nine other countries in the region that are expected to have the biggest increases in the number of Muslims, six are Muslim-majority – Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Somalia and Guinea.
Niger, which is expected to have the second-largest numerical increase in the size of its Muslim population, will also have the largest percentage increase in the number of Muslims. Its Muslim population is expected to increase by more than 100 per cent, from 15.6 million in 2010 to 32 million in 2030.
In addition to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Ghana are expected to have the largest increases in the share of their population that is Muslim.
In Eastern Africa, which includes Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, the Muslim population is projected to increase from 70.3 million in 2010 to 109.5 million in 2030. Over the same period, however, the share of East Africa’s population that is Muslim is expected to decline slightly, from 21.5 per cent to 21.1 per cent in 2030.
Two countries with relatively small Muslim populations – Rwanda and Gabon – are among those expected to have the greatest proportional increases in the size of their Muslim populations over the next 20 years.
Rwanda’s Muslim population is expected to increase by 92.8 per cent, from 188,000 in 2010 to 363,000 in 2030, while Gabon’s Muslim population is expected to increase by 68.2 per cent, from 145,000 to 244,000.
Muslims account for less than 10 per cent of the population in Middle Africa, which includes Cameroon, Congo and the Republic of Congo. The Muslim population in this part of Africa is expected to increase from 11.8 million in 2010 to 18.4 million by 2030. The Muslim share of the population is expected to remain at roughly 9 per cent.
Southern Africa is forecast to have roughly the same number and share of Muslims in 2030 as in 2010. The Muslim population is expected to increase slightly, from 757,000 in 2010 to 824,000 in 2030. The Muslim share of Southern Africa’s population is projected to remain at 1.3 per cent.
The 209-page report contains detailed analysis and description of the factors that drive this growth.
The main factors, or inputs, in the population projections are: births (fertility rates), deaths (mortality rates), migration (emigration and immigration), and the age structure of the population (the number of people in various age groups).
Related factors – which are not direct inputs into the projections but which underlie vital assumptions about the way Muslim fertility rates are changing. Fertility rates in Muslim-majority countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to decline in the next 20 years.
But the declines will likely not be as large as the declines in Muslim-majority countries in other regions of the world.
As a result, Muslim-majority countries in sub-Saharan Africa are still expected to have some of the highest fertility rates in the world in 2030 (an average of 3.8 children per woman in 2030).
Among the 13 Muslim-majority countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Chad, Somalia and Burkina Faso are expected to have the greatest declines in fertility in the next 20 years.
As recently as 1990-95, average life expectancy at birth in the region’s Muslim-majority countries was only 47 years. Today, average life expectancy at birth in these countries is 54 years. By 2030-35, it is expected to be 62 years, a 15-year increase from 1990.
If current trends continue, life expectancy at birth in the region’s Muslim-majority countries will narrowly surpass that in non-Muslim-majority countries within 20 years.
Among the possible reasons for this is that Muslim-majority countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a lower prevalence of HIV than non-Muslim-majority countries in the region.
Although HIV may be underreported in some Muslim societies, this study’s analysis of 2009 data from the U.N. finds that less than 2 per cent of people ages 15-49 in Muslim-majority countries in sub-Saharan Africa are HIV positive, compared with nearly 6 per cent of the population in non-Muslim-majority countries in the region.
The current population data that underpin this report were culled from the best sources available on Muslims in each of the 232 countries and territories for which the U.N. Population Division provides general population estimates.
Many of these baseline statistics were published in the Pew Forum’s 2009 report, Mapping the Global Muslim Population, which acquired and analyzed about 1,500 sources of data – including census reports, large-scale demographic studies and general population surveys – to estimate the number of Muslims in every country and territory.
All of those estimates have been updated for 2010, and some have been substantially revised.
The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, an effort funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation to analyze religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
Over the next two decades, the worldwide Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population – an average annual growth rate of 1.5% for Muslims compared with 0.7 per cent for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4 per cent of the world’s total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4 per cent of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion.
However, while the global Muslim population is predicted to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, it is also expected to grow at a slower pace in the next 20 years 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 per cent; for the period from 2010 to 2030, the rate of growth is projected to be 1.5 per cent.
These are among the key findings of The Future of the Global Muslim Population, which seeks to provide up-to-date estimates of the number of Muslims around the world in 2010 and to project the growth of the Muslim population from 2010 to 2030.
The report’s projections are based both on past demographic trends and on assumptions about how these trends will play out in future years.