Jews are the best educated of any religious group, averaging 13.4 years of schooling and with a majority going on to higher education, according to a new report by the respected Washington-based Pew Research Center.
This is because Jews mainly live in Israel and the US, two countries with high levels of education. At the same time, the worst educated group are Hindus, 98 per cent of whom live in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The levels of education for Muslims, who are more spread out around the world, varies according to whether they reside in countries with strong economies or developing regions. Muslim girls fare worse than boys when it comes to schooling.
However, some areas of the world show significant differences in education levels among different religions. For example, Christians – who are the second best educated religious group overall – are on the whole better educated than Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa.
The findings are published today in the Pew report, Religion and Education Around World.
Christians have 9.3 years of schooling on average, compared to 7.9 for Buddhists, and 5.6 for Muslims and Hindus.
According to the report, adults with no religious affiliation spend 8.8 years in school on average.
Intriguingly, religious minorities in the US are more likely to have college degrees than the Christian majority: Hindus 96 per cent, Jews 75 per cent, Muslims 54 per cent, Buddhists 53 per cent, Unaffiliated 44 per cent, Christians 36 per cent.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Muslims are more than twice as likely as Christians to have no formal schooling, and the gap is widening. The report says: "Some scholars suggest that the source of the Christian-Muslim attainment gap is rooted in the location of Christian missionary activity during colonial times. Missionary-built educational facilities were often located in what became heavily Christian areas rather than predominantly Muslim locales... As a result, Christians gained an educational edge over Muslims that lasted decades."
Overall, almost one in five of the world's adults – more than 680m people – have received no formal schooling.
However, with Muslims and Hindus the number missing out on education is around two in five.
Nonetheless, the report shows that gains are being made by younger adults of all religious groups.
The youngest Hindus in the study (born between 1976 and 1985) spent an average of 7.1 years in school, which is nearly twice as long as the oldest Hindus (born 1936-1955).
Muslims were similarly spending an extra three years at school within three generations, with an extra 2.5 years for Buddhists.
Meanwhile, over the same period Christians gained just one extra year, and Jews less than half a year.
Among religiously-unaffiliated adults, the youngest had gained an extra 2.9 years in school, overtaking Christians for the number of school years within this age group.
Similarly, the gender gap is improving over time. Overall a much higher proportion of women had received no formal education, though the gap was shrinking with successive generations.
However, there was still a 19 point gap between the youngest men and women among Hindus, with 38 per cent of women having no formal education, compared to 20 per cent of men.
Among the youngest Muslims, 33 per cent of women were not going to school, compared to 23 per cent of men.
Strikingly however, among Jews the gender gap is reversed when it comes to higher education among the youngest group, with 69 per cent of women having gained degrees compared to 57 per cent of men.
Meanwhile, Christians in Europe and North America tend to be much more highly educated than those in sub-Saharan Africa.
