This is a companion question to this one . I've heard it said that Buddhism is the fastest growing religion in the West. Is that true? Does anyone have any statistics to support or refute this? It seems that this wouldn't be right in absolute terms but might be true in percentage growth for some countries. I appreciate that many people find the term 'The West' unsatisfactory. However for this could we use the definition from here : > cultures that are directly derived from and influenced by European > cultures so this include be Europe, North American plus Australia and New Zealand.

I was listening to a podcast a while ago and it stated that Buddhism worldwide is in decline. I found that surprising. Is that true? Does anyone have any references or better still statistics to prove or disprove that.

I was listening to the introductory podcast from the Buddhist Geeks series. The guys presenting are of the younger demographic i.e. in their twenties. They felt that this was unusual and most Western Buddhist practioners were older - baby boomer generation. Does anyone have any surveys or statistics that analyse self identified Buddhists in the West by age? Do they tend to be older? Or is the age range pretty much similar to the population at large?

In the question https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/4 we learn that woman have been becoming monks for a long time. In modern times (*circa 2014 CE*) what percentage of monks are female?