A new report released by the Pew Research Centre has found that the proportion of Catholics in Latin America has dropped 25% since 1970. One of the primary drivers for the rise in the numbers leaving the Catholic Church? Conversion to Protestantism

A new report released by the Pew Research Centre has found that the proportion of Latin America that is Catholic has dropped 25% since 1970, falling from 92% of the population then to 69% now. Over the same period of time the number of Protestants has grown to 19%, while the number that define themselves as religiously unaffiliated has risen to 8%.

One of the primary drivers for the drop in the number of Catholics is the conversion to Protestantism. This is probably the most interesting finding in the report. Overall, 84% of Latin American adults report that they were raised Catholic, 15 percentage points more than currently identify themselves as Catholic.

Many of today’s protestants were raised as Catholics, and most of this movement is relatively recent, and has taken place in the span of a lifetime.

Across Latin America, more than half of those that have switched from the Catholic Church to Protestantism say their new church reached out to them. Of those leaving, 81% cite seeking a personal connection with God as the main reason. In every country surveyed by Pew, Protestants are more likely than Catholics to exhibit high levels of religious commitment. In fact, a surprising claim in the report is that Catholics in Latin America tend to be less conservative than Protestants on social issues. For example, as this table from Pew’s report shows, Catholics tend to have a more favourable view on same-sex marriage compared to protestants in every country surveyed:

In terms of religiously unaffiliated adults, Uruguay tops the list among the countries surveyed.

Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) Uruguay is home to Latin America's largest percentage of religiously unaffiliated adults (37%)http://t.co/nHCjDEIJkb pic.twitter.com/heanqMzh1k

Here is a breakdown of the religious affiliations for all countries the report focused on:

Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) In one chart: Religious affiliations of Latin Americans and U.S. Hispanics http://t.co/nHCjDEIJkb pic.twitter.com/AZqItFCxS1

You can explore the full report here.