Believing in Spirits and Life After Death Is Common Around the World

A Pew Research Center survey finds belief in life after death is widespread around the globe.

The belief that spirits can reside in animals and in parts of nature such as mountains, rivers or trees is widespread.

Pew: Younger adults are at least as likely as older adults to hold these spiritual beliefs.

In most of the countries surveyed, a majority of adults say there is definitely or probably life after death.

This is especially true for countries in South and Southeast Asia , sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America .

The U.S. is roughly in the middle of the pack, with 38% of Americans saying religion is very important in their lives.

The share of people in each country who say religion is very important in their lives broadly follows secularization theory.

But levels of national income are much less clearly correlated with some of the newer questions in the survey about religious and spiritual beliefs such as belief in the power of ancestral spirits and the existence of “something spiritual beyond the natural world”.