Hindu population in US up by over 1 million

Muslims constitute 0.9 per cent of the total US population, while the population of Buddhists remained at 0.7 per cent during this period, the study said.

Hindus, along with Jews, are the highest educated community with maximum annual family income among all religious groups, said the study released yesterday.

“Fully 77 per cent of Hindus are college graduates, as are 59 per cent of Jews (compared with 27 per cent of all US adults),” it said.

“These groups also have above-average household incomes. Fully 44 per cent of Jews and 36 per cent of Hindus say their annual family income exceeds USD 100,000, compared with 19 per cent of the public overall,” the study said.

According to the report, Hindus, Muslims and Jews are the three religious traditions that retain the largest shares of adherents raised within their group.

Among all US adults who say they were raised as Hindus, fully 80 per cent continue to identify with Hinduism as adults while most of those who no longer identify as Hindus now describe themselves as unaffiliated, it said.

According to the study, 90 per cent of Hindus say they were raised as Hindus. Further, Hindus are more likely than any other religious group to have a spouse or partner with the same religion (91 per cent), it said.