Women more religiously devout than men, new study finds

Mar 23, 2016 by Jill

By Harriet Sherwood, Guardian:

Women are more religiously devout than men even though they are excluded from positions of leadership in many faiths and denominations, a new study has found. According to the respected Pew Research Center, 83.4% of women around the world identify with a faith group, compared with 79.9% of men – a difference of about 97 million people.

Pew’s report, The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World, points out that history’s most influential religious leaders have been men and that many religious groups allow only men to officiate, or have only recently eased that restriction. “Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women,” the report states.

It gathered global data on gender and religion among Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and the religiously unaffiliated. Women made up more than half of those identifying as Christians (53%), Jews (52%) and Buddhists (54%); and slightly less than half of Hindus (49%). Muslims were split 50/50 on gender. The biggest gender divide was among the religiously unaffiliated, with 55% men and 45% women.

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Read also: Visualizing gender differences in religious commitment around the world from Pew Research Center