New Study Highlights Widespread Spirituality Among Nonreligious Adults Around the World

Most Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated say they believe in God or a higher power.

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A growing number of people across the globe are walking away from organized religion, yet many of them still embrace ideas of an unseen spiritual realm, life after death, or divine powers, a new study suggests.

On Thursday, Pew Research Center published its findings on so-called “religious nones,” a category that covers atheists, agnostics, and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Drawing from surveys conducted in 36 countries, Pew highlighted results from 22 of them, where the unaffiliated made up a large enough sample for separate analysis.

Belief in the Afterlife and the Spiritual Realm

In every one of those 22 nations—including the United States, Canada, and Mexico—at least 19 percent of unaffiliated adults said they believe in an afterlife, Pew said.

The share was much higher in the Americas: 65 percent in Peru, 53 percent in Brazil, and 50 percent in the United States. Even in more secular European societies like Sweden and once-communist Hungary, about one in five “nones” held that belief.

Many also reported belief in a spiritual dimension beyond the physical world. Majorities in Brazil (65 percent) and Mexico (61 percent) agreed with the statement that “there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we cannot see it.”

Belief in ancestral spirits was also widespread. Across most of the countries surveyed, between 20 and 40 percent of unaffiliated adults said the spirits of ancestors can help or harm the living—including 36 percent in France, 31 percent in Canada, and 25 percent in South Korea. In South Africa, an overwhelming majority (81 percent) of “nones” affirmed that belief.

The study also found that many unaffiliated people see animals as possessing “spirits or spiritual energies.” At least three-quarters of “nones” in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Greece said they share that view.

Belief in God Among the Unaffiliated

“Many religiously unaffiliated adults also express belief in God,” Pew reported, pointing to especially high numbers in South America: 92 percent in Brazil, 86 percent in Colombia, and 69 percent in Chile. South Africa shows a similar pattern, with 77 percent of “nones” affirming belief in a higher power.

That trend, however, is far less pronounced in other parts of the world. In Australia, only 18 percent of “nones” said they believe in God, compared with 10 percent in Sweden and just 9 percent in Hungary.

In the United States, belief among the unaffiliated appears to be rising. In 2024, 62 percent of American “nones” said they believe in God, up from 45 percent who said the same in a 2023 Pew survey.

Still, Pew noted that some groups reject spirituality altogether. In Sweden, where more than half the adult population is unaffiliated, 28 percent hold a consistently secular outlook that sweepingly denies the existence of God, the afterlife, and any transcendent spiritual realm. Similar secular clusters exist in Australia (24 percent), the Netherlands (24 percent), and South Korea (23 percent).

By comparison, only 8 percent of the U.S. public—where 29 percent identify as religiously unaffiliated—14 percent of Canadians, and just 2 percent of Mexicans fall into that category.

Demographics of the Nonreligious

Pew found that adults under 40 are more likely than older generations to identify as religiously unaffiliated. Education appears to play a role, too, with higher levels of education linked to higher rates of nonaffiliation.

When it comes to gender differences, female “nones” were generally more likely than males to hold spiritual or religious beliefs, including belief in reincarnation, according to Pew. However, when it came to belief in God specifically, women only outpaced men in four of the 15 countries where gender comparisons were statistically meaningful.

Importantly, Pew noted that nonbelief is not always the main reason people are unaffiliated. In the aforementioned 2023 survey conducted in the United States, the top reason cited (47 percent) was dislike of religious organizations. One third of American “nones” surveyed said they had “bad experiences with religious people,” while 32 percent pointed to nonbelief in God or a higher power.

Pew’s findings also show the complexity and, sometimes, inconsistency, in religious self-identification. In the United Kingdom, for instance, 8 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God. In Sweden, “just 58 percent of self-identified Christians say they believe in God,” according to Pew.

Pew’s data was collected in surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024, with a combined sample of more than 84,000 respondents. The work is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which Pew says “analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.”