More Singapore residents identifying as having no religion: census

Among Singapore citizens and permanent residents aged 15 and above in 2020, those with no religious affiliation made up 20 per cent, up from 17 per cent in 2010. (PHOTO: Getty Images)
Among Singapore citizens and permanent residents aged 15 and above in 2020, those with no religious affiliation made up 20 per cent, up from 17 per cent in 2010. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — While Singapore continues to be religiously diverse, more residents are identifying as having no religion, said the Department of Statistics (DOS) in a report released on Wednesday (16 June).

Among Singapore citizens and permanent residents aged 15 and above in 2020, those with no religious affiliation made up 20 per cent, an increase from 17 per cent in 2010, said the DOS in the first statistical publication on its Census 2020 findings.

Within the ethnic groups, 25.7 per cent of Chinese identified as having no religion, while 0.4 per cent of Malays and 2.2 per cent of Indians said the same in 2020. Meanwhile, 14.6 per cent of those from other ethnic groups said they had no religion.

Among the resident population aged 15 and above in 2020, Buddhists were the largest group at 31.1 per cent, followed by Christians at 18.9 per cent and Muslims at 15.6 per cent. Taoists comprised 8.8 per cent, while Hindus made up 5 per cent, with those prescribing to other religions accounting for 0.6 per cent.

The proportion of Muslims and Christians also grew between 2010 and 2020 while the proportion of Buddhist and Taoists dipped.

Among the Chinese, 40.4 per cent identified as Buddhists, while 21.6 per cent were Christian, 11.6 per cent Taoist and 0.5 per cent Muslim. Among the Malays, 98.8 per cent identified as Muslim, while 0.1 per cent said they were Buddhists and 0.4 per cent had no religion.

For Indians, 57.3 per cent identified as Hindu, while 23.4 per cent were Muslim, 12.6 per cent were Christian and 0.7 per cent were Buddhist. Another 3.9 per cent of Indians identified with some other religion and 2.2 per cent said they had no religion.

The DOS report is aimed at providing broad trends and changes relating to the demographic characteristics, marriage and fertility, education, literacy, home language and religion of Singapore's resident population – referring to citizens and permanent residents – between 2010 and 2020. The census data was collated from 150,000 households.

More findings from Census 2020 will be shared on Friday.

(INFOGRAPHIC: Department of Statistics)
(INFOGRAPHIC: Department of Statistics)

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