Socio-Demographic Assessment of Data on Religion of Migrants

Focusing on the data of migrants’ religion, this paper provides research-based evidence to explain whether and to what extent such data could be reliable. The explanation is based on population census that also provides unique nation-wide data sources on ‘religious affiliation’. It particularly focuses on a group of migrants in the multiethnic and multicultural context of Australia whose religious affiliation was ‘Islam’ (that is, Muslim migrants) from a comparative perspective. The findings of this study show that while this particular group of migrants are affiliated to the same religion, they contribute overwhelmingly varying socio-demographic and economic characteristics on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds. According to the findings of the present analysis, this paper argues that if migrants belonging to the same category of religious affiliation are studied as a single group without considering their ethnic origins, this will lead to insufficient, incomplete, and misleading knowledge on migrants’ religion.