A survey conducted in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and neighboring Vietnam found that many people do not identify with religion, but say they believe in invisible beings, honor ancestral spirits and perform rituals.
By some measures, East Asia appears to be one of the least religious regions in the world. Relatively few adults in East Asia pray daily or say religion is very important in their lives. The rate of people abandoning religion is among the highest in the world, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults in East Asia and neighboring Vietnam.
However, the survey also found that many people throughout the region still have religious or spiritual beliefs and follow traditional rituals.
The majority of adults surveyed in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam say they believe in the existence of God or invisible beings.
Many people also participate in ancestor worship rituals based on religion. For example, in Japan, 70% reported that they had offered food, water or drink to honor or care for their ancestors in the past 12 months. In Vietnam, 86% performed this ritual in the past year.
Praying to or paying respect to religious figures or deities is quite common. For example, 30% of adults in Hong Kong say they pray to or pay respect to Guanyin, a deity associated with compassion, and 46% of adults in Taiwan say they pray to or pay respect to Buddha.
A large number of adults across the region – ranging from 27% in Taiwan to 61% in Hong Kong – say they have “no religion.” But even among these religiously unaffiliated, half or more leave offerings for dead ancestors; at least four in ten believe in God or invisible beings; a quarter or more of them say that mountains, rivers and trees have spirits.
In short, when we measure religion in these societies based on what people believe and do, rather than whether they say they believe in a religion, the region is far more religiously vibrant than it might initially appear.
Collecting data on religion in East Asia is a complex challenge. The concept of religion was imported into the region by scholars only about a century ago, and common translations of “religion” (e.g. zongjiao in Chinese, shukyo in Japanese, jonggyo in Korean) are often understood as referring to structured, hierarchical forms of religion, such as Christianity or new religious movements – not traditional Asian forms of spirituality.
The survey included some questions that have long been used to measure religious observance in other parts of the world, such as how important religion is in people’s lives. But this report focuses more on new questions designed to measure relatively common beliefs and practices in Asian societies, including: ancestor worship; the existence of spirits in the natural world. reverence for deities and religious figures; beliefs about life after death; and personal connection to religion beyond identity.
This report is based on a large regional survey of 10,390 adults in four East Asian societies (Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) and neighboring Vietnam. The survey was conducted in seven languages from June 2 to September 17, 2023. It builds on previously published studies by the Pew Research Center on religion in China, India, and South and Southeast Asia.
More highlights in this overview: Religious change in the region | Religious change in East Asia compared to the rest of the world | General beliefs and practices | How ex-Buddhists in East Asia compare to lifelong Buddhists | Other key findings in this report