Politics and Work Shaping Women's Faith Practices

Understanding the Shift in Women’s Religious Participation

The Pew Religious Landscape Survey highlights a significant shift in the religious participation of women. While it is encouraging that women remain more religious than men overall, there is a concerning trend: the gap between women and men in terms of religiosity is narrowing. This change has sparked questions about what factors are influencing this shift and how religious institutions can adapt.

Traditional Gender Roles and Changing Beliefs

Historically, women have been more religious than men. According to the survey, this trend held true for every birth cohort until the 1980s. However, among millennials and younger generations, the gender gap in religiosity is beginning to close. One theory suggests that this is due to women leaving religious institutions because of limited leadership roles and formal positions of authority. For example, studies show that 65% of Gen Z women believe churches do not treat men and women equally. Dr. Beth Allison Barr, a history professor at Baylor University, notes that younger generations are more aware of these gender disparities in religious leadership.

Despite the assumption that more liberal religious practices would attract more members, many large liberal denominations that ordain women are experiencing steep declines. Ruth Graham from The New York Times points out that opening up official roles to women may not necessarily bring them back to church. In fact, mainline Protestant denominations, which have ordained women for decades, have seen a higher percentage of women leaving compared to evangelical and Catholic churches, which are more theologically conservative.

Political and Work Influences

In their book The Great Dechurching, authors Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge reveal that 68% of disaffiliates from mainline churches are women, an issue that they emphasize as highly significant. Two lesser-known factors influencing this trend are politics and work.

Political scientist and statistician Ryan Burge explores the intersection of religion and politics in his 2021 book The Nones. He argues that partisanship plays a role in religiosity, with Democratic women facing more "cross pressure" than Republican women. For instance, Democratic women are more likely to identify as sexual minorities or support elective abortion, which can conflict with their religious beliefs. This tension may be contributing to their disaffiliation from traditional religious institutions.

Workforce participation also affects women's religiosity. According to Pew, women who are working in the labor force tend to be less religious on average than those who are not. This is reflected in daily prayer, weekly service attendance, and the belief that religion is very important. Labor force participation reduces the religious gap between women and men by nearly half. For example, the gap in daily prayer between women and men falls from 13% to 7% among women in the workforce.

Rigid Gender Roles and Disaffiliation

Overly rigid gender roles can also lead to people leaving organized religion. A survey of over 4,000 dechurched individuals found that 9% cited misogyny as the reason for their departure. One example is the megachurch Mars Hill, led by Mark Driscoll, which discouraged women from pursuing ambitions outside the home. A former member described how the church's stance on women's roles led to a worship experience that problematized women's rights and empowerment.

While progressive theology and practices have not stopped women from disaffiliating, neither will a fundamentalist approach that condemns modern life. Some churches have tried to modernize their worship services with rock music, casual atmospheres, and PowerPoint sermons. However, demographer Lyman Stone found that contemporary worship styles had little impact on church attendance rates and were actually less popular among younger generations.

Moving and Other Factors

According to The Great Dechurching, the most common reason why mainliners stopped attending church was simply "moving." This reflects a broader trend where young people may not be abandoning religion because they love the world, but rather because they don’t see contemporary religion offering something meaningful to them.

This complex interplay of factors—politics, work, and shifting cultural norms—highlights the need for religious institutions to reevaluate their approaches and better understand the evolving needs of their congregants.