In Sweden, a large majority of the population define themselves as Christians. Based on a representative survey reflecting 7.9 million of the Swedish population, 5.1 million of these define themselves as Christians, with 240,000 of these being very religious.

This statistic shows the result of a survey on religious identification in Sweden in 2017, by type. That year, the largest group of Swedish population (a share of 43 percent) participating in this survey identified themselves as non-practicing Christians. Only nine percent of respondents was practicing Christian, defined by the source as someone who goes to church at least monthly.

This statistic shows the result of a survey conducted in 2017 on the level of knowledge about religion in Sweden. That year, the largest religious knowledge of Swedish population (a share of 86 percent of respondents) had great or some knowledge about Christianity, whereas 14 percent had not much or no knowledge about Christianity. In contrast, only 40 percent of individuals said that they have a great or some knowledge about Judaism.

According to a survey on religious belief, younger generations of Swedes believed less in God than older generations of Swedes. During the time under consideration, the religious believes of the respondents fluctuated but declined overall. While 60 percent of the 65 to 85-year-olds believed in God in 2010, this was only the case for 42 percent of the respondents in 2022. Interestingly, the share of young people (16 to 29 years) believing in God increased in 2021 and 2022.

This statistic shows the result of a survey conducted in 2017 on reasons to leave a religion in Sweden. That year, the largest reason, with a share of 60 percent of respondents, was that they had gradually been drifting away from religion. The second largest reason, reaching a share of 57 percent, was that Swedes no longer believe in their religion's teachings and disagrees with its position on social issues.

The share of Swedes who believe in God declined continuously since 2010. While 47 percent of the respondents believed in God in 2010, the share had dropped by 15 percentage points in 2022, amounting to 33 percent.

In September 1981 a new Swedish translation of the New Testament was published. The main purpose of this survey is to show the possession and use of the Bible among the Swedish population. Respondents were asked about their interest in issues concerning religion and outlook of life, if they believe in God and about their relation toward the Christian faith, how often they attend church and how often they pray. The major part of the questions addressed people who used to read the Bible. They were asked how and why they read the Bible and which Bible translation they use. Furthermore they were asked about their opinion on the new translation of the New Testament.

In 2022, there were 188,000 members of Islamic communities under the umbrella of the Islamic Cooperation Council in Sweden. Additionally, there were over 150,000 members of Orthodox and Eastern Churches. More than half of the Swedish population were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden in 2022.

In Sweden, a majority of the respondents see themselves as Christian. Moreover, around one third did not have any religious beliefs.

This statistic displays the estimated and actual Muslim population share in Denmark and Sweden in 2018. In Denmark, respondents on average guessed that 18 out of every 100 people in Denmark were Muslims. In fact, 4. percent of the Danish population was Muslim in 2018. Swedes estimated 23 percent of every hundred people to be Muslim, but the actual number was 8 percent.

Abstract

The World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life, led by an international team of scholars, with the WVS association and secretariat headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The survey, which started in 1981, seeks to use the most rigorous, high-quality research designs in each country. The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries which contain almost 90 percent of the world’s population, using a common questionnaire. The WVS is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents. Moreover the WVS is the only academic study covering the full range of global variations, from very poor to very rich countries, in all of the world’s major cultural zones. The WVS seeks to help scientists and policy makers understand changes in the beliefs, values and motivations of people throughout the world. Thousands of political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists and economists have used these data to analyze such topics as economic development, democratization, religion, gender equality, social capital, and subjective well-being. These data have also been widely used by government officials, journalists and students, and groups at the World Bank have analyzed the linkages between cultural factors and economic development.

Geographic coverage

This survey covers Sweden.

Analysis unit

• Household
• Individual

Universe

The WVS for Sweden covers national population, aged 18 years and over, for both sexes.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample size for Sweden is N=1009 and covers national population, aged 18 years and over, for both sexes.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The WVS questionnaire was in Swedish. Some special variable labels have been included, such as: V56 Neighbours: Muslims and V149 Institution: The European Union. Special categories labels are: V 167 Least liked Groups; V179 Religion; V203/ V204: Geographical affinity and V217 education1. Country Specific variables included are: V208: Ethnic identification, 1. Swedish, 2. other language, 3 other Culture, 4. other religion and 5. other language, cult and 9.DK; V209: Language at home: 6. European, 7. Turkish, 10. Several Languages and 9. other and The variables political parties. The V 206 Born in this country is also different in Sweden.

Sampling error estimates

+/- 3,1%

When this study began in the 1940s the researchers set out with the view that a formerly more or less universal Swedish unitary ecclesiastic culture was in the process of dissolving. The socio-economic changes of the early 19th century were believed to have led to religious conceptions differentiating and customs not being taken for granted any more. The scientists held that only small parts remained of an earlier natural and unitary ecclesiastic culture. Based on this view the researchers conducted an extensive project to gather information about those remains of this earlier church life that were still to be found, in the same way that general ethnography conducted research on customs in other areas of life. The researchers were of the opinion that earlier research had ignored the spiritual side of folk life and that this was problematic since it missed an important part of the daily life and ways of thinking of the population that were deeply rooted in Christianity.

Purpose:

To document those ecclesiastic customs and practices which at the time when the study was conducted were considered to be the dwindling left-overs of a former "ecclesiastic unitary culture".

About 5.600 text files containing free-text answers to the questions of the study from respondents from all parts of Sweden. The files are sorted according to diocese and parish. Also included is an accessions register in spreadsheet format. NOTE! The text files are encoded as UTF-8. If the Swedish characters å, ä and ö are not displayed properly you need to change the program's settings to UTF-8.

In this file, statistics are broken down by Malmö’s different areas over time. Source Unless otherwise stated, the statistics in this database are retrieved from Statistics Sweden’s (SCB) regional database, Skånedatabasen or from Statistics Sweden’s area statistics database (OSDB). The Skåne database and OSDB show data from several different sources that Statistics Sweden has compiled on a geographical level. The statistics only cover persons who are part of the population registered in the population. Therefore, persons without a residence permit, such as asylum seekers, and persons who simply have not registered in the municipality are not included. Statistics Sweden does not provide statistics on which language residents speak, which religion you belong to or what ethnicity or political views you have. Therefore, such data is not available here either. However, the Electoral Authority reports election results per constituency on its website val.se. There are statistics from the last election as well as several previous elections available. Please note, however, that the constituencies do not necessarily follow the division of the city made here. Update The data is updated every spring as Statistics Sweden releases the figures to the municipality. Most variables are available for the year before. However, income and employment data are released with another year’s backlog. Unless otherwise stated, the date of measurement is 31 December of each year. Geographical breakdown Unless otherwise stated, the data is available for Malmö as a whole and broken down into urban areas (5 pieces), districts (10 pieces) and subareas (136 pieces). In addition to these, there is a residual post that contains the people who are not written in a specific place in the municipality, have protected identity and more. These people are also part of the total. In several of the subareas there are no or only a few registered population registers. Therefore, no data are reported for these areas. Examples of such sub-areas are parks such as Pildammsparken and Kroksbäcksparken and industrial areas such as Fosieby Industriområde and Spillepengen. Privacy clearance In order to protect the identity of individuals, the data is confidentially audited. This means that small values are suppressed, i.e. replaced by empty cells. However, the values are included in summaries. In general, the following rules apply: * No statistics are reported for geographical areas with very few housing. * No cells with fewer than 5 individuals are reported. For data classified as sensitive (e.g. income and country of birth), larger values can also be suppressed. * In cases where a subcategory (e.g. a training category) is too small to be accounted for, all categories are often suppressed. Please use the numbers, but use “City Office, Malmö City” as the source.

Statistics illustrates consumption, production, prices, and trade of Perfumes and deodorizors; perfuming or deodorizing preparations for rooms, "agarbatti" and other odoriferous preparations which operate by burning (including those used during religious rites) in Sweden from 2007 to 2024.

The present study analyses 6,699 death notices appearing in Swedish newspapers from 1976 through 1995, and 5,766 death notices in specifically urban newspapers from the same period. The death notices are analysed using the same method as in an earlier study by theologian Per Block (Lund University), making it possible to study changes in the use of text in death notices already from 1945.

The analysis shows that the number of cross symbols decreased markedly, from nearly 100 % of the death notices in 1976 to 39 % of the notices generally in 1995, and to 32 % of the notices in urban newspapers, while the number of alternative symbols increased. Interviews showed that a recurring concern was to choose a symbol that in some way portrayed the identity of the deceased. This may reflect an increased individualism and a reaction against the anonymity perceived in the cross symbol, which for many indicated only that somebody had died.

The text portion of death notices has changed in that the number of notices containing language associated with Christianity decreased from 1945 to 1995. An attempt was made to relate these changes in death notices to changes in the rate of church oriented religiosity, but no clear connection was found.

This study was part of a larger project, Cultural indicators: The Swedish Symbol System 1945-1975-1995 (KUSS II), funded by the former Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Purpose: The aim of the project was to study the contents of death notices in Swedish newspapers; how death notices are designed today (in the 1990s) and how they have changed over time. These issues were related to questions of secularisation and individualisation in Swedish society.

The dataset consists of a sample of 6699 death notices published in Swedish daily newspapers during the years 1976-1995. The data includes the actual text from the death notices as well as coded data describing the level of religious content, symbols used, the size and political affiliation of the newspaper, etc. The data can be retrieved in MS Excel or SPSS format.

The dataset consists of a sample of 5767 death notices published in Swedish city newspapers during the years 1976-1995. The data includes the actual text from the death notices as well as coded data describing the level of religious content, symbols used, the size and political affiliation of the newspaper, etc. The data can be retrieved in MS Excel or SPSS format.

Moral, religious, societal, political, work, and family values of Europeans.

Topics:

Leisure time: importance of areas of life; feeling of happiness; memberships and honorary activities in clubs, parties, organizations, citizens´ initiatives and occupation organizations; interactions in leisure time; tolerance regarding minorities, those of other beliefs and foreigners; inter-human trust; self-effectiveness (scale); general contentment with life (scale).

Work: importance of selected characteristics of occupational work (scale); personal employment; general work satisfaction (scale); self-determination at work (scale); work ethic (scale); attitude to achievement-based pay and following work instructions without criticism; priority of nationals over foreigners as well as men over women with shortage of jobs; assumed priority of individual or social reasons for the situation of economic need of individuals; freedom of the unemployed to reject a job offer (scale).

Politics: party preference; attitude to foreign workers in one´s country; fear of the future; assimilation and integration of immigrants; concept of a just society (more welfare state or liberalism, scale); interest in political news in the media; individualism and thinking of the community; interest in politics; political participation; self-assessment on a left-right continuum (scale); self-responsibility or governmental provision (scale); attitude to competition freedom and entrepreneur freedom (scale); satisfaction with democracy; attitude to the current political system of the country and judgment on the political system of the country ten years ago (scale); preference for a democratic political system or for strong leadership of an individual politician (scale); attitude to democracy (scale); loss of national characteristics through unification of Europe.

Religion: individual or general standard for good and evil; current and perhaps earlier religious denomination; current frequency of church attendance and at the age of 12; importance of religious celebration at birth, marriage and funeral; self-assessment of religiousness; ability of the religious community in moral questions, with problems in family life, spiritual needs and current social problems of the country; belief in God, life after death, hell, heaven, sin, telepathy and reincarnation; belief in God or nihilism (scale); importance of God in one´s own life (scale); comfort and strength through belief; prayer and meditation; frequency of prayer; possession and belief in lucky charms or talisman (scale); reading and observing horoscopes; attitude to separation of church (religion) and state (scale).

Family and marriage: important criteria for a successful marriage (scale); attitude to marriage and the traditional family structure (scale); attitude to one´s own children (scale); attitude to traditional understanding of one´s role of man and woman in occupation and family (scale); attitude to a traditional or liberal parent-child relation; importance of educational goals; attitude to abortion.

Society: preference for individual freedom or social equality; post-materialism (scale); preferred social development (scale); attitude to technical progress; trust in institutions; observing individual human rights in the country; attitude to environmental protection (scale); closeness to family, the neighborhood, people in the region, countrymen, Europeans and humanity; closeness to older people, the unemployed, foreigners and handicapped well as readiness to make an effort for these groups; personal reasons for assistance with older people as well as foreigners; identification with the city, the region, the nation, Europe and the world; national pride. morals and sexuality: moral attitudes (tax evasion, theft, use of drugs, lying, bribe money, corruption, euthanasia, suicide, environmental pollution, alcohol at the wheel; scale); moral attitudes to partnership and sexuality (homosexuality, abortion, divorce, promiscuity; scale); assumed spreading of immoral behavior in the population of the country (scale); attitude to punishment dependent on the situation of the culprit or the victim (scale).

Demography: sex; year of birth; marital status and living together with a partner; number of children; school education; age at termination of school training; employment; superior function and span of control; company size; occupation (ISCO88) and occupational position; length of unemployment; size of household; ages of children in household; head of household; characteristics of head of household; household income.

Additional country specific questions included.

Also coded: city size; region; length of interview.

This statistic displays the opinion of Swedish people on whether people of different religious identities were real Swedes or not. According to the survey conducted in 2018 by Ipsos, a majority of respondents thought that Christians, Jews and Atheists were real Swedes. Less people considered Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims to be real Swedes.

Over the past decade, the share of the Swedish population who was a member of the Swedish Church decreased steadily from 70 percent in 2010 to 53 percent in 2022. This underlines the trend that religion is playing a smaller part in people's lives in Sweden.

The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden and it was the state church between 1536 and 2000.

This statistic shows the result of a survey conducted in 2017 on people agreeing that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Sweden's culture and values. That year, the largest agreement of the Swedish population was church-attending Christians, with a share of 43 percent of respondents. Compared with the religiously unaffiliated reaching 33 percent of individuals it was ten percentage points higher.

In September 1981 a new Swedish translation of the New Testament was published. The main purpose of this survey is to show the possession and use of the Bible among the Swedish population. Respondents were asked about their interest in issues concerning religion and outlook of life, if they believe in God and about their relation toward the Christian faith, how often they attend church and how often they pray. The major part of the questions addressed people who used to read the Bible. They were asked how and why they read the Bible and which Bible translation they use. Furthermore they were asked about their opinion on the new translation of the New Testament. I september 1981 utkom Bibelkommissionens nyöversättning av Nya testamentet, NT 81. Styrelsen för Svenska Bibelsällskapet - ett samarbetsorgan för kyrkor och samfund i Sverige med bl a uppgift att främja bibelarbetet i landet - har i samarbete med Religionssociologiska institutet (RSI) genomfört en omfattande undersökning om mottagandet av NT 81. Undersökningen 'Svenskarnas syn på livsåskådning, religion och Bibeln 1984/85' ingår som en delstudie i det av Svenska Bibelsällskapet finansierade projektet 'Svenska folkets mottagande och användning av NT 81'. I studien ingår besöksintervjuer med ett normalurval av den svenska befolkningen i åldersintervallet 16-74 år. Datainsamlingen genomfördes vid två av SIFOs s.k. veckobussar i november-december 1984. Utöver allmänna bakgrundsfrågor ställdes frågor om bibelinnehav och bibelläsning. Samtliga intervjupersoner i denna del av undersökningen fick en fråga om de ville besvara ett frågeformulär med frågor om 'livsåskådning, religion, bibelläsning och liknande ämnen'. Av de totalt 1 104 svarspersonerna förklarade 1 029 att de var villiga att besvara formuläret. Från dessa inkom efter påminnelse 919 besvarade formulär. För att tillförsäkra undersökningen ett tillräckligt stort antal svarande som är regelbundna bibelläsare ställde SIFO för RSI:s räkning vid fyra s.k. veckobussar under perioden januari-mars en fråga om hur ofta man läser bibeln. Till de regelbundna bibelläsarna utdelades vid besöksintervjuerna frågeformuläret om livsåskådning. För att få uppgifter om hur den äldsta delen av den svenska befolkningen har mottagit NT 81 genomfördes en begränsad delstudie av denna ålderskategori. Ett riksrepresentativt urval om 924 personer mellan 65 och 99 år intervjuades genom telefonintervjuer under perioden april-maj 1984. Utöver allmänna bakgrundsfrågor ställdes tre frågor om bibelinnehav, två om bibelläsning, en om inställning till bibelöversättning samt två om gudstjänstbesök. Pilotstudie