US Hindus gain edge in education, income

Survey shows how immigrants are tilting the balance, politicians will use it to woo key groups

NEW YORK: It’s a report card Hindus in the US can proudly flaunt. A new study shows they have topped Americans in the two areas of education and income.

Nearly half of the Hindus in the US and one-third of Jews have post-graduate degrees, compared with only about one in ten of the adult American population as a whole. They are also among the richest in the US, a major study showed on Monday.

The first US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that immigration is playing a key role in shifting the religious balance in the United States.

The Hindu population may be tiny compared to the majority of immigrants who are Christian, but the Hindu population is more likely than other groups to report high income levels.

The survey finds that while 46% of Jews earn over $100,000 a year, nearly 43% of Hindus match these high earnings. In the US, only 18% of the working population earns $100,000-plus a year.

 “I think politicians will be looking at this survey to see what groups they ought to target,” Professor Stephen Prothero told the New York Times. “If the Hindu population is negligible, they won’t have to worry about it. But if it is wealthy, then they may have to pay attention.”

The study predicted that immigration would drive US population growth and push whites into a minority by 2050, while the Latino population would triple in number and double in percentage terms during the same period, swelling from 14% in 2005 to 29% in 2050. Muslims rival Mormons as having the largest families while Hindus have small families.

“Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%). Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families; more than one in five Mormons and 15% of Muslim adults in the US have three or more children living at home,” highlighted the Landscape Survey which showed the demographic characteristics of religious groups in the US. Barely 3% of the Hindu population has three or more kids.

Eight in 10 Americans are Christian: half are Protestant, a quarter Catholic, 1.7% Mormon, and tiny percentages belong to other branches of Christianity. Sixteen percent are unaffiliated, and nearly 5% follow other religions, including 1.7% who are Jewish; 0.7% Buddhist and 0.6% Muslim.

Based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a nationally representative sample of over 35,000 adults, the survey provides estimates of the size of religious groups that are as small as three-tenths of 1% of the adult population.