Religious Structure of the World Population

During the 1800s comparative religion scholars increasingly recognized Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as the most significant "world religions." Even today, these are considered the "Big Five" and are the religions most likely to be covered in world religion books.

Five smaller or more localized religions/philosophies brought the list of world religions to ten: Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, Shinto and Zoroastrianism.

Христианство и ислам постоянно увеличивают число своих приверженцев. По мнению Э. Тоффлера, американского философа и футуролога, новые технологии и радикальное перераспределение мирового богатства окажут на них серьезное влияние. По прогнозам Всемирной энциклопедии христианства, к 2025 году число христиан вырастет приблизительно на 30 процентов — с 2 до 2,6 миллиарда человек. Ислам расширяется гораздо быстрее. Если в 2001 году мусульман было 1,2 миллиарда человек, то к 2025 году их будет уже 1,8 миллиарда. То есть 50 процентов прироста за четверть века. Эти цифры приобретут гораздо более драматический оттенок, если посмотреть, где окажутся «дополнительные» христиане и мусульмане: в обоих случаях наблюдается пространственный сдвиг.

Пространственная передислокация религий будет определять распределение богатства в мировом масштабе. Главные центры христианства предположительно сместятся в Африку, Латинскую Америку и Азию (Китай). Число мусульман особенно увеличится в Европе, в основном благодаря иммиграции. Уже сегодня треть всех мусульман проживает в качестве культурно-этнических меньшинств в немусульманских странах. Как правило, это самые мобильные и динамичные представители среднего класса интеллигенции, бизнесмены и профессора. Переместившиеся мусульмане станут оказывать растущее влияние на политику, образ жизни, рынки и капитал.

Ближний Восток, напротив, будет терять влияние на мировую экономику, в том числе и из-за сдвига ислама на Восток и Запад, а также из-за уменьшения запасов нефти и снижения стратегической роли региона как важного транзитного центра между Азией и Европой.

Подробнее с точкой зрения Э. Тоффлера можете ознакомиться в его интервью журналу «Эксперт» (см. А. Алексеева. Новая волна богатства // Эксперт. 2008. №2. С. 96-99; имеется электронная версия в архиве «Эксперта» по адресу www.expert.ru).

Groups estimated to exceed 500,000 adherents which are not listed under any of the categories above are the following:

· Spiritism (not an organized religion): 15 million

· Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million

· Neopaganism: 1 million

· Unitarian-Universalism: 800,000

· Rastafarianism: 600,000

· Scientology: 500,000

Различия между суннитами и шиитами в рамках ислама гораздо острее, чем нам кажется из Европы. Шииты имеют духовенство в виде аятолл, происходящих от пророка Магомета. Для шиита слова аятоллы – закон. Сунниты же не имеют своего духовенства, кроме имамов, объясняющих суть и правила ислама, но не устанавливающих их. У суннитов – светская власть в виде королей и президентов.

Population Migrations

Migration is one of the most distinctive and visible characteristics of human populations, and it leads to significant reshaping of population distribution and character.

Перемещение людей через национальные границы происходит постоянно – около половины миллиарда (!) человек хотя бы раз в год покидает свою родину. А эта цифра равна численности всего населения Земли на заре индустриальной эры в 1650 году.

Types of migrations

- Emigration, leaving one's native country to live in another

- Immigration, arriving to live in a new country

- Chain migration, the mechanism by which foreign nationals are allowed to immigrate due to the acquired citizenship of an adult relative

- Forced migration, the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region

- Free migration, people are able to migrate to whatever country they choose, free of substantial barriers

- Illegal immigration, immigration that defies the laws of the arrival country

- Mass migrations, the movement of a large group of people from one geographical area to another (e.g., the westward movement in the United States in the nineteenth century and the move from the southeast coast to the interior of Brazil starting in the 1960s, when the new capital city of Brasilia was built)

- Political migration, a migration motivated primarily by political interests

- Rural-urban migration, the moving of people from rural areas into cities

- Seasonal human migration, common among agricultural workers

- The activity of nomads, communities that continually move from one place to another

On the whole the context of migration varies from voluntary and discretionary (the search for a better place to live), to voluntary but unavoidable (the search for a place to live), to involuntary and unavoidable (the denial of the right to choose a place to live).

Voluntary and unavoidable migration occurs when much of a region’s or country’s population is impelled into migration streams, such as the millions of Irish who fled to the United States in the 1840s because of the potato famine or the millions of Somalis, Sudanese, and Rwandans who moved in the 1990s because of drought, famine, and civil war. However, some migrations are forced and involuntary. Such was the case with African Americans who were taken to North and South America in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries to work as slave laborers on sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations.

Physical barriers such as deserts, mountains, rivers, and seas or cultural barriers such as political boundaries, languages, economic conditions, and cultural traditions determine how people move and where they settle.

In 2005, about 191 million people—3 percent of the world's population—were international migrants, according to UN estimates.

Between 1995 and 2000, around 2.6 million migrants per year moved from less developed to more developed regions. More than one-half of these settled in the United States and Canada.

About 40 percent of international migrants move from one less developed country to another: from Paraguay to Brazil, or from Ghana to Côte d'Ivoire, for example. In Southeast Asia, migrants from Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar seek jobs in Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and other newly industrialized countries in Asia.

In coming decades, more migration will occur between developing countries, such as that from Bangladesh to India, or from India, Egypt, and Yemen to the Persian Gulf States.

Migration to, from, and within the Middle East and North Africa is augmenting, diminishing, or reshaping the populations of many of its countries.

In some oil-rich Persian Gulf states, foreigners have become a majority of the labor force, filling service and skilled jobs that native-born workers could not or would not take. In Bahrain, for example, 47 percent of workers are foreign-born men, 11 percent foreign-born women. In Kuwait, 64 percent are foreign-born men, 17 percent foreign-born women. Foreigners make up half the labor force in Saudi Arabia.

In other parts of the region, people are leaving to seek economic opportunities or escape violence or political instability. In North Africa, a region of emigration, foreigners make up less than 1 percent of the population. In 2004, one-third of France's 3.3 million foreigners were from Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, and Tunisia. One-third of Germany's 6.9 million foreign-born population was from the Middle East and North Africa.

The number of refugees worldwide, defined by the United Nations as “people who have fled persecution in their own countries to seek safety in neighboring states,” rose from 8.7 million to 9.9 million during 2006. The rise in the refugee population in 2006 was due in large part to the displacement of Iraqis to other countries, particularly to Syria and Jordan.

An increasing number of people—more than 24.5 million—are “internally displaced,” forcibly relocated within their own countries by violent conflict or environmental disasters. This figure includes substantial numbers of people in Iraq, Sudan, and Colombia.