More people globally  — including a majority in the United States — say that they desire to see religion play a more important role in their country, new polling data from the Pew Research Center shows.

This week, Pew released data compiled from years of polling over 30,000 people in 27 countries that asked respondents about diversity, gender equality, and religion in their respective countries.

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The random samples were nationally representative for each country with about 1,000 being surveyed per country.

Among the questions, respondents were asked if they favor or oppose the idea of religion having a more important role in their country.

The data shows that those who oppose religion playing a more important role in their countries outnumber those who support an increased role for religion in just five of the 27 survey countries (all European). . . .

The poll also finds differences among age groups.

“Older adults are more supportive of a more important role for religion in 10 countries. The biggest age difference is in Italy, where there is a 25 percentage point gap between older and younger Italian adults,” Pew researchers wrote in the report. “But this age gap also exists in both Canada and the U.S., where there are gaps of 19 and 22 percentage points, respectively, between those ages 18 to 29 and those 50 and older.”

The report indicates that people who say that religion is very important in their lives are especially in favor of a more important role for religion in society. They are also more likely say that religion plays a more important role than it did 20 years ago.