Some might argue that it never was, but the results from the 2013 Census has been released.
For the stats geeks you can see the tabulated data here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/data-tables/total-by-topic.aspx
I’m sure someone will create pretty infographics in time, but for now here are some stats that caught my attention:
- 2 out of 5 respondents (41.92%) identified as not religious (1,635,348, up 20% from 1,297,104 in 2006); a further 12.17% (474,642) objected to or did not answer. This means that for the first time in NZ census history, this group is more than the total that identify as Christian (to compare, in 1956 over 90% of respondents identified as Christian)
- Less than half of respondents (48.18%) identified as a Christian denomination (1,879,671, down from 2,062,752 in 2006) – note Stats NZ’s definition is pretty big-tent and includes Jehovah’s Witnesses (0.46%, 17,931) and Mormons (1.04%, 40,728)
- Catholics are now NZ’s largest religious denomination at 12.62% (492,324, down from 508,812 in 2006)
- Next highest is Anglicans at 11.79% (459,771, down from 554,925 in 2006) – a huge drop of 17%
- Presbyterians at 8.11% (316,329, down from 385,350 in 2006)
- Baptists were 1.4% of respondents (53,496, down from 56,175 in 2006)
- Pentecostals at 1.17% of respondents (45,777, up from 36,372 in 2006).
- Increased numbers who responded as Hindu (90,018, up from 64560 in 2006), Muslim (46,194, up from 36,153 in 2006) and Buddhist (58,440 up from 52,392 in 2006) – global missions can be found locally. And there’s more (self-identified) Buddhists than Baptists.
Any other thoughts? You can browse the Census results at your leisure here.
