The Expected Challenges of Measuring Religious Identity in Europe in 2020

In a series of reports, Pew Research Center has measured religious identity in Europe and the rest of the world as of 2010. In recent years, Europe has been experiencing dramatic change not only its religious landscape but also significant change in the data available to describe its religious landscape. Some European countries have stopped measuring religion in a census and others have changed how they measure religion in the census. In some cases, religion remains in the census but a large share of the population does not answer the religion question. These changes add to the already significant complexity of measuring religious identity in Europe. This presentation will review how Pew Research Center dealt with such challenges in making 2010 estimates and describe possible solutions to the new challenges involved in making 2020 estimates. Conrad Hackett, Pew Research Center, Washington, DC conradhackett@gmail.com