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Women continue to outnumber men in religious belief and practice across most societies, even when the faith promotes traditional gender roles that limit their social, economic and legal freedoms.
That paradox is explored in new research by Professor Sascha Becker of the University of Warwick, alongside co-authors Jeanet Sinding Bentzen from the University of Copenhagen and Chun Chee Kok from the Université Catholique de Louvain.
The study, called Gender and Religion: A Survey, appears in the Journal of Demographic Economics, and comes at a moment of symbolic significance for Christianity with the Church of England appointing its first female Archbishop of Canterbury.
It synthesises decades of research from economics, sociology and psychology to examine two linked questions: why women are more religious than men, and how religion shapes women’s lives socially and economically.
Drawing on survey data from around the world, the authors confirm a consistent pattern: women tend more than men to identify with a religious tradition, to pray regularly, and to describe faith as central to their daily lives. This holds across countries, cultures and most major faiths.
“However, patterns of participation differ across religious contexts: while women attend worship services more frequently than men in predominantly Christian societies, the reverse tends to hold in Muslim and Jewish contexts,” they said.
The increased likelihood of Christian women to engage in prayer may be down to “women’s greater emotional expressiveness and caregiving roles”.
The study reviews a wide range of explanations proposed over time, one of them focusing on economic roles. Research from the 1970s suggested that religious participation was historically tied to the domestic sphere, where women spent more time.
Evidence from more recent time-use data points to lower levels of religious practice among women who work outside the home, narrowing — but not eliminating — the gender gap.
Another explanation centres on attitudes to risk. As early as the 17th century, philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that belief in God was a rational choice because it carried no downside if wrong and infinite reward if right.
Modern research finds women, on average, to be more risk-averse than men, which may make religious belief more appealing.
Religious communities also operate as a social safety net, buffering individuals against economic and personal shocks.
A third perspective highlights what they call “compensation for deprivation”. In societies where women face barriers to status, employment or public influence, religious communities can provide meaning, recognition and leadership opportunities otherwise denied to them.
The authors point to historical cases, including early 20th-century Korea, where women’s involvement in Christian leadership was linked to higher female participation in education and public life.
Other explanations relate to life-cycle and social patterns like pregnancy, childbirth and caregiving which are often associated with deeper religious engagement, while women’s longer life expectancy means they are more heavily represented in older, more religious age groups.
Gender gaps were found to narrow in line with degrees of modernisation, secularisation, and gender equality. But, the paper finds, the “gap does not vanish entirely – even in highly secular countries women remain more religious than men”.
“Potential socialization effects are also evident in how religiosity changes with marital status: studies often find that married women are more religious than single women, possibly because marriage and motherhood elevate the social expectation of religious involvement (being a ‘good mother’ may be viewed as aligning with raising children religiously),” the study said.
The authors also highlight the role of “secular competition”: men are more likely to substitute religious participation with non-religious communal activities — such as sport or social clubs — particularly when these compete with time traditionally devoted to worship.
Beyond explaining religious participation, the second half of the paper examines how religion itself affects women’s outcomes.
The researchers focus on studies that use rigorous empirical methods — such as natural experiments, policy changes and randomised interventions — to isolate the effects of religion from broader cultural or economic factors.
The evidence shows that religion continues to influence a wide range of outcomes for women and girls. These include access to education, marital timing, participation in the labour market, reproductive rights, fertility, and even whether female children are born in societies with strong preferences for sons.
Religious ideas also shape laws and public policy, either directly through doctrine or indirectly through their influence on lawmakers. The impact, however, is not uniform, meaning religion can either reinforce inequality or become a force for women’s empowerment.
They document cases where religious movements supported women’s advancement, such as early Protestant campaigns to promote literacy so that all believers could read scripture. At the opposite extreme, Taliban rule in Afghanistan is an example of religion being used to justify the exclusion of women and girls from education altogether.
The study also notes a generational shift. The gap between men’s and women’s religiosity is largest among older generations and appears to be narrowing among younger adults in Australia, Europe and North America.
In these countries, young men are becoming more religious while young women are disengaging from organised religion.
Some of this change has been linked to the growth of congregations promoting highly patriarchal ideas of masculinity and forms of Christian nationalism.
Professor Becker said, “An important question on which evidence is only beginning to emerge is whether the gender gap will close as societies modernise and secularise – or will deeper factors continue to draw women to faith?
He continued, “Women’s participation in formal employment, their reproductive rights, and their legal rights and responsibilities are still shaped openly by religious teachings and indirectly through the influence of faith on legislators.
“Against this background it is clearly a puzzle that women are, on average, more religious than men despite most religions promoting and entrenching patriarchal norms which impose significant costs and burdens upon them.”
He added, “While the research we reviewed offers partial explanations, no single theory or study explains this paradox.”
