Decline of religion in the anglophone world
In 1966, the Australian
census indicated that only 0.8% of the population had ‘no religion’. In 1976,
it was 8.3%; in 1986, it was 12.7%1; in 1996 it was 16.6%; in 2006
it was 18.7%. In the last census in 2016, it was 30.1%, and was the largest of
any option given in the census. At that census, 52% of the population still
maintained some affiliation with Christianity, and the largest group among those
were Catholics, who formed 22.6% of the population2.