Jews are the most educated religious group globally, the Pew Research Center said on Tuesday in a comprehensive study called "Religion and Education Around the World." According to the survey, Jews dedicate 13.4 years on average to formal schooling, while Christians only 9.3. People who are unaffiliated with any religion log 8.8 years of formal schooling on average, while Buddhists and Muslims only 7.9 and 5.6 respectively. For Hindus that number stands at 5.6 years. The survey was based on data from 151 countries, "collectively representing 95% of the 3.6 billion people around the world who were 25 or older in 2010," with the assumption that "by age 25, most adults are likely to have reached their highest level of educational attainment." The study further shows that religious minorities in general are more likely to have college degrees than the Christian majority in the United States. Some 96% of Hindus in the U.S. have a postsecondary degree. Jews immediately follow with 75%, followed by Muslims (54%), Buddhists (53%), unaffiliated (44%) and Christians (36%). According to the report, "The share of Jews with at least some schooling has remained virtually universal across generations at 99%," with Jews in Israel having an average of 12 years of schooling, compared to Jews in the U.S. who have 14.7 years. "Globally, the youngest Jewish women ages 25 and older are more highly educated than their male peers due to larger gains among women than men in nearly every region of the world," the report says. Women ages 25 to 34 have an average of 14.2 years of schooling; Jewish men in the same cohort have an average of 13.4 years. The global share of people who have a university degree or have obtained any kind of higher education, stands at 14%, but 61% of Jewish men and women have postsecondary degrees, much higher than the share of college graduates in other religions. "Nearly seven in 10 of the youngest Jewish women worldwide (69%) have postsecondary degrees, up from about six in 10 (59%) in the oldest cohort," the report said. "But Jewish men have moved in the opposite direction; the share with higher education has declined across generations by 9 percentage points, from 66% in the oldest generation to 57% in the youngest." According to the study, the level of education among Jews changes according to region: "Just under half of all Israeli Jews (46%) and three-quarters of North American Jews have postsecondary degrees, but in South Africa, fewer than three in 10 Jewish adults (29%) have obtained this level of higher education." "Although Jews are one of the most highly educated religious groups in the United States, the youngest Jewish men are less likely than the oldest Jewish men to have postsecondary degrees," the center noted. "The decline is substantial: Eight in 10 Jewish men in the oldest generation (81%) have postsecondary degrees, compared with about two-thirds (65%) in the youngest generation in the study -- a 17-point decrease." The center points to "two contributing factors to the decline in U.S. Jewish men's educational attainment: First, a larger share of U.S. Jews among the youngest generation in this study identify as Orthodox -- a group that tends to be less educated than other U.S. Jews -- compared with the oldest. Among the oldest generation (born 1936 to 1955), 7% of Jewish men identify as Orthodox, compared with 33% among the youngest generation (born 1976 to 1985). In addition, fewer of the youngest Orthodox Jewish men are earning postsecondary degrees: 77% of the oldest Orthodox Jewish men have higher education, compared with 37% of the youngest." The report suggests that a certain religious community's level of education can be explained, in part, by its geographical distribution, with Jews serving as a case in point: "The vast majority of the world's Jews live in the United States and Israel -- two economically developed countries with high levels of education overall. And low levels of attainment among Hindus reflect the fact that 98% of Hindu adults live in the developing countries of India, Nepal and Bangladesh. ... But there also are important differences in educational attainment among religious groups living in the same region, and even the same country. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, Christians generally have higher average levels of education than Muslims. Some social scientists have attributed this gap primarily to historical factors, including missionary activity during colonial times."
