People with non-religious conscience options – atheists, agnostics or non-believers – are a majority for the first time in Catalonia. Specifically, 51.3% of the Catalan population is, according to a report by the Fundació Ferrer i Guàrdia on secularism, prepared from data obtained from various sources such as CIS barometers.
The Basque Country is the other Spanish community where there is also a secular majority (51%). Throughout the State, the percentage of non-religious people is 41.5%, exceeding the 40% threshold for the first time. This is the largest figure in history. The study also highlights that in the latest edition of the foundation’s analysis, the 35 to 44 age group exceeds 50% non-religious for the first time.
Of the total Spanish population, 54.2% are Catholic, 15.9% are atheists, 13% are agnostic, 12.7% are indifferent, 2.8% believe in a religion other than Catholic and 1.5% does not specify it.
For the first time, in Catalonia (51.3%) and the Basque Country (51%) there are a majority of people with non-religious conscience options. With more than 45% of the population, the Balearic Islands and the Community of Madrid are the other two autonomous communities with the highest percentage of non-religious people.
On the other hand, the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla have more than 70% religious people, followed by the autonomous communities of Extremadura (68.3%) and Castilla-La Mancha (66.9%).
In 1980, the population that considered itself non-religious was much smaller: only 8.5%. Since then, the proportion of non-believers has increased to the current figure of 41.5%. Among non-religious options, the increase in agnostic people stands out by 1.2 percentage points.
On the other hand, the greatest reduction is in the Catholic population, which falls 2 percentage points compared to last year. On the other hand, the population of believers of other religions has grown during the last year, now representing 2.8% of the Spanish population.
The percentages vary according to age groups. 59.9% of people between 18 and 34 years old declare themselves not religious. This position is also expressed, for the first time, by people between 35 and 44 years old, with more than 50% lay.
In the older population groups, on the other hand, the proportion of religious people is still the majority, highlighting the group aged 75 or over, where practically 8 out of every 10 people are religious.
Another factor that the foundation’s analysis focuses on is the class with which people identify. According to this, people who subjectively identify as working class are mostly non-believers (6 out of 10).
In the middle or upper-middle classes, there is also a majority of religious people, although they do not exceed the numbers of the working class.
Other data collected in the report has to do with the link between religion and education. In the 2020-2021 academic year, there were 2,548 Catholic educational centers in Spain, of which 94.6% were subsidized centers. Regarding the total number of educational centers in the Spanish State as a whole, Catholic centers represent 9%.
In Catalonia, subsidized Catholic centers account for 8.4% of educational centers. The autonomous communities with the greatest presence of Catholic centers are Cantabria (15.9%), La Rioja (15.3%) and the Balearic Islands (14.7%). For their part, the regions with the lowest proportion are the Canary Islands (4.1%), Extremadura (5.8%) and Murcia (6.2%).
2022 is the first year where there is a higher percentage of births outside of marriage, this figure being 50.1% throughout Spain. In 1990, it accounted for only 1 in 10 births.
Finally, the analysis also looks at the percentage of civil and religious marriages. Catalonia, followed by the Basque Country and the Balearic Islands, are the regions with the highest number of civil links. These account for 9 out of 10 marriages. The autonomous communities with the most confessional marriages are Extremadura, Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha.