Overseas Born ‘Religious Nones’ in Australia

Australia has witnessed a significant rise in people claiming ‘No-Religion’ in recent censuses with the percentage having more than doubled in the last two decades. Academic literature addressing Australian non-religion focuses on explaining this rise and/or investigating the inherent diversity of the substantial religious ‘none’ category. Existing research also tends to refer to two broad categories of non-religious people in Australia: those who become non-religious while living in Australia and those who were born non-religious. There is little understanding of the migration of non-religious people to Australia. Similarly, current migration literature abounds with analyses of religious migrant groups who contribute to the religiosity of Australia, but there is minimal investigation of non-religious migrants. The 2021 Australian national census identified that close to one-quarter of non-religious people were born outside of Australia, but it is unclear if they were already non-religious or if they ‘lost’ their religion after migration or settlement. This article seeks to understand the increase of the no-religion category by focusing on those born overseas. This investigation finds that, although not a central driver, migrants are also contributing to the ‘non-religious’ population. These findings challenge much of the migration scholarship that characterises migrants as religious and complicates understandings of migrants solely driving increased religiosity in Australia.