Religious Denominations of Kerala

This paper discusses the demographic and socio-economic profile of religious communities (Castes among the Hindus, Sects among the Muslims and Denominations among the Christians) in Kerala’s three major religions — Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Such data are not presently available from other sources such as the population censuses. The practice of collecting “caste” data was discontinued in the Indian censuses ever since India became independent in 1947. This study, based mainly on data from the Kerala Migration Surveys, is an attempt to fill this void for recent years. It gives information on the size of the communities (population), trends, major demographic characteristics, selected socio-economic characteristics such as education, employment, migration and remittances, and several indices of the economic status at the household level.