U.S. Has Largest Number of Foreign-Born Hindus; Emigrating to America is Most Popular Pathway for Hindu Migrants

There is a large difference between the religious composition of Indians who choose to emigrate to other countries to those who stay in India, a recent report by the Pew Research Center has revealed. Eighty percent of people in India are Hindu, but they form only 41% of emigrants from the country. In contrast, only 15% of Muslims live in India, compared with 33% of those who were born in India and now live elsewhere. Christians make up only about 2% of the Indian population, but 16% of those who have left India are Christian.

Hindu migrants “make up a small share of all international migrants (5%), with 13 million Hindus living outside their country of birth, as of 2020, said the report on ‘Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants.’ But when Hindus chose to emigrate, they “travel longer distances from origin to destination countries” than any of the other groups included in the report, “moving an average of 3,100 miles from their country of origin, compared with an average of 2,200 miles among migrants overall,” the report added.

Thus it’s no surprise that the United States has the most foreign-born Hindus (2.6 million) outside of India, accounting for 19% of them. “Moving from India to the U.S. is the most popular pathway for Hindu migrants around the world,” the report noted, adding that “about 1.8 million Hindus have taken this route, making up 61% of all Indian immigrants in the U.S. as of 2020.” Like other Indian immigrants, many Hindus arrive in the U.S. for employment and family reunification. They often have higher levels of education and higher family incomes than those who remain in India, the report said. 

 Other popular destinations for Hindu migrants include the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the study noted, “where they are often temporary workers, though many routinely renew their work permits.” If Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — were considered a single destination, “a move from India to the GCC would be by far the most common one for Hindus,” the report found. Roughly 3 million Hindus from India live in GCC countries, where foreign workers comprise half or more of the area’s workforce.

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When it comes to Hindu migrants in countries aside from India, Nepal and Bhutan have the largest group. “But as these countries have relatively small populations overall, and they are not among the top destinations for Hindu migrants,” the report noted. It ranked Pakistan and Bangladesh as the top two countries with the largest origin of Hindu migrants. “Hindus are far more likely to have left Bangladesh and Pakistan than they are to have left India or Nepal,” the report said. “Hindus form a small minority of the overall population in Bangladesh (8%) and Pakistan (2%), but they make up 21% and 8% of international migrants from those countries, respectively.”