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Why are women so religious?
Here is a passage from Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class:
...the effective middle-class congregation tends...to become a congregation of women and minors. There is an appreciable lack of devotional fervour among the adult males of the middle class...
This peculiar sexual differentiation...is due...to the fact that the middle-class women are in great measure a (vicarious) leisure class. The same is true in a less degree of the women of the lower, artisan classes. They live under a regime of status handed down from an earlier stage of industrial development, and thereby they preserve a frame of mind and habits of thought which incline them to an archaic view of things generally...For the modern man the patriarchal relation of status is by no means the dominant feature of life; but for the women...confined as they are by prescription and by economic circumstances to their "domestic sphere," this relation is the most real and most formative factor of life. Hence a habit of mind favourable to devout observances and to the interpretation of the facts of life generally in terms of personal status. The logic, and the logical processes, of her everyday domestic life are carried over into the realm of the supernatural, and the woman finds herself at home and content in a range of ideas which to the man are in great measure alien and imbecile.
That's from chapter XII. The implication is that women in the work force should be less religious, adjusting for income and education. Is that true? Here is Bryan Caplan on said topic. Here is another article. Here is another comment. Here is my previous post on Veblen.
So why are women more religious than men? Is it just greater risk-aversion?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 16, 2007 at 05:34 AM in Religion | Permalink
Comments
1. Women are more intelligent than men.
2. Childbirth gives women intuition into creation.
3. There are inherent difficulties in surveying religious outlook.
4. Women have more time to reflect on eternity and ultimate meaning.
I suspect a lot of theories will be heavily conditioned by the religious view of the theorist. There is also a difference from professing belief, actually believing, going to Church, living a Good life, etc; i.e., there may be inherent difficulties in measuring the religiousity of society.
Posted by: John Goes at Mar 16, 2007 5:48:27 AM
The answer is Empathizing
We've just done a big (800 people) survey of religiousness and atheism, using Simon Baron Cohen's questionnaire that looks at empathizing and systematizing (see his: The Essential Difference: Men, Women, and the Extreme Male Brain, 2003).
If you control for empathizing then this eliminates the difference in religiousness between men and women (ie. equally empathic men and women are equally religious).
But why empathizing should be related to religiousness is another question. My hunch is that empathizing measures social intelligence, and this is the basis of the animistic thinking which (probably) underlies religion and spirituality.
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Mar 16, 2007 6:51:47 AM
Caplan - 'On a deep level, then, men are more inclined to want some hard proof that religious claims are true, while women are more willing to take religious teachings on faith because they sound nice.'
I agree with that, women are simply more emotional than men. Although on the other hand they are more inclined to depression than men, which in my own experience leads to a retreat from religion. Although it could also lead to a hankering for 'another world.'
The Holloway PDF pointed out that the higher levels of female religiosity were confined to the Christian faith. That may be for two reasons.
1. Men never liked religion in the first place, all the morality, time wasted in Church etc, and they only went along because of social and community pressures. Maybe most men really viewed religion like Homer Simpson did - a chore. Once the whole thing became optional they quickly abandoned it. Women are more like Marge and will keep up appearances for a while, but may abandon it at a future date.
2. At heart Christianity is a kind of girly, touchy-feely faith, and this has been magnified somewhat in recent decades as mainline Churches become increasingly liberal. I was raised Catholic and abandoned choir singing, and eventually mass entirely, because my peers considered it 'girly.' I doubt Muslim boys have such a problem.
I also agree with Susan Jacoby that the causation runs from higher education (not IQ) to less religiosity.
Posted by: adrian at Mar 16, 2007 6:53:31 AM
adrian above makes a very interesting post., esp point 1. in india i already see this happening with relgiosity distributed along a distribution in lumps which leads to periodic waves quittng going to temples.
Posted by: sa at Mar 16, 2007 7:32:05 AM
I would like to distinguish between "abstract/theological" religion and the "social/community" religion from which I believe it derived (in the course of millenia); call them Aquinas-religion and Mother-Teresa-religion respectively. My bias suggests that more males will tend to spend time trying to reconcile free will with Divine omniscience, and more females will tend to spend time trying to make sure that somebody (whatever her theology) is handling the Christmas pageant and the presents distributed by Catholic Charities, but that bias could easily be wrong; all I'm sure of is that I'd like to see data collection that tries to separate these, even though I doubt they can be fully separated.
Posted by: Tom Myers at Mar 16, 2007 8:24:56 AM
I, like Adrian in his first point, think that Christianity in particular, can be seen as "girly" in that it requires a submission of your will to that of God, who is a god who took human form as a man. Crude a simplification as it may be, "on your knees" isn't generally though ot as a good place to be for most men.
Posted by: anne at Mar 16, 2007 9:25:03 AM
What statistical evidence is there that women are more religious, and how is "religious" measured? And does this vary cross-country and over time?
Posted by: jason voorhees at Mar 16, 2007 9:29:41 AM
I am from India and here it is definitely true that women are by far more religious. But, the interesting thing is that the religious activities are more ritualistic in nature and congregational, be it a hindu, sikh or christian religious activity. I personally think that religion is one activity that women from the middle class and lower middle class would be allowed, no questions asked. If a women wanted to just hang out with her friends or pursue any other leisure activity then it would be considered frivolous but religion legitimises. I think the women here have a lot of fun at religious dos. They sing, laugh, bond and they don't feel guilty.
Posted by: jiv at Mar 16, 2007 10:39:10 AM
Perhaps men might be more comfortable on their knees before a female figure, such as Mary. The rough, tough medieval knights were certainly so inclined.
Posted by: Pat Mathews at Mar 16, 2007 10:40:06 AM
If it's true that women are more "religious," whatever that means (and I haven't read the article), my guess is that one important factor is that women are the primary child raisers, and that raising the children in the family's faith is the driving motivation.
Posted by: Jim Milles at Mar 16, 2007 11:25:43 AM
Is it relevant that every womens magazine has horoscopes, and no mens magazines do? Some of the atheist women I know swear by them. Are women more superstitous generally?
Posted by: jim at Mar 16, 2007 11:39:40 AM
1. What evidence is there? The three links posted offer dramatically different pictures of this.
2. Why might it be the case? Greater neuroticism may certainly play a role. People like to justify their feelings. Especially the feelings of being "connected" with people.
Posted by: Robert at Mar 16, 2007 11:41:19 AM
Religion is a social activity; philosophy (math) is not. Women prefer the former and men the latter.
Posted by: David Zetland at Mar 16, 2007 12:15:36 PM
I recall a small article in a principles of economics book that said that women devote a larger percentage of their income to both charity and gifts than men do. Perhaps this has to do with empathy and/or socializing that parallels the religious activity.
Posted by: Cyril Morong at Mar 16, 2007 12:21:53 PM
I think another reason is that traditionally it is considered a credit to women if they are religious or inclined to charity. Men, on the other hand, are rewarded if they are 'tougher.' For instance, gullibility in a woman would be considered charming and soft but would be despised in a man.
Posted by: jiv at Mar 16, 2007 12:33:22 PM
I think the comments nail it -- i.e. there are several reasons. Raising children, social things, tradition along with time and charitable/practical reasons and the one that I think may be dominant among the marginal modern women: empathy & superstition. The other reasons apply well in other cultures and among women raised religiously but who might otherwise abandon it, and for questions of practicing religion, but among very secular modern urban types when the question is "do you believe" not "do you practice" I think the empathy/emotional/superstitious factor comes into play.
It isn't that women aren't rational - women can be quite rational and yet still hold on to some emotional intuition. If one tries to be very rational in daily activities, one may want to express that emotional intuition somewhere safe-- like in reading of daily horoscopes or belief in God or some-such.
Posted by: liberty at Mar 16, 2007 12:37:02 PM
All the really scary religious people seem to be men.
Posted by: David J. Balan at Mar 16, 2007 12:44:21 PM
Women are more religious than men for the same reason that women are usually the only gender that pays attention to astrology charts in papers and magazines.
Posted by: fred lapides at Mar 16, 2007 1:11:00 PM
Poor people is more religious than people with large income.
Poverty is higher among women.
Ergo..
Posted by: jcm at Mar 16, 2007 2:33:28 PM
And remember Nietzches commentary about christinanism as a religion pof women
Posted by: jcm at Mar 16, 2007 2:37:03 PM
John Goes, although Rushton claims women have lower average intelligence, most studies show them to have about the same average as men (despite less brain volume on average, possibly explained by the white vs gray matter composition of brains) but less variance (fewer idiots and geniuses both). What evidence is there that women are more into horoscopes & astrology? Here's Half Sigma on the latter.
Posted by: TGGP at Mar 16, 2007 2:52:36 PM
Hmmm..
Christianity, at least, asks people to turn the other cheek when attacked...celebrates the awful victimization of a Christ who refuses to fight back...emphasizes "empathy, sharing, listening, being kind"--the kindergarten virtues. Know many male kindergarten teachers? It also insists upon chastity, monogomy, disciplining lustful thoughts--without gendering everything, which gender struggles most immediately with the difficulty of living life this way? Honestly? In most Chritian worship services we deal with robes, candles, musical interludes, holding hands and all the rest of it. Christianity in particular is just, on average, allowing of course for individual exceptions, more aligned with 'female" sensibilities. Testosterome plays a part in all of this as well, I'm sure. I've long thought that the insistence on male priests in Catholicism and other traditions has something to do with a much-needed attempt to introduce a masculine fraternal dimension to what is otherwise a very "feminine" space.
Posted by: PAT at Mar 16, 2007 2:53:09 PM
Same reason women read romance novels. They like to idealize relationships. That's why they like to skip over the nasty parts of the old testament and cast Jesus in such a feminine and nurturing light.
Since we have free market in religion, here in the U.S., we see denominations that cater to women rather quickly lose men. It is hard, even for men who believe strongly, to feel connected in such an atmosphere.
Posted by: August at Mar 16, 2007 2:55:47 PM
Men, especially after they have children, have a hard time believing that God cares about individuals personally. Men figure that if they were God, they'd spend all their time in high level staff meetings with their archangels deciding on really important issues like whether to intervene to prevent two galaxies from colliding with a projected loss of five quadrillion sentient life forms.
Women, in contrast, figure that if they were God, they'd listen in on everybody's personal lives. What could be more fun?
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Mar 16, 2007 2:57:04 PM
Religion requires self-discipline and self-control, which men lack relative to women. Also, women are more moral than men, so a religion that requires them to adhere to a strong moral code is appealing.
Posted by: sm at Mar 16, 2007 3:06:53 PM
Speaking in these averaged generalities about sex, gender, gendered socialization, feminist politics, the-athiest-closet, willingness-to-disagree, risk-aversion, etc. there's nothing you can't prove by shooting fish through the barrel to see what floats to the top as proof. If this were piano playing we'd have ski gloves on. 'women are...', 'women can...' , 'women prefer..." How about some interesting cases to start with. Are averages of gay men as religious as straight men or more like straight women? What about lesbians? Is the religious experience even reducable to a value to be more or less than? How does the serious all day every day critical theological scholar rank vs the mom/dad who thinks that it offers a reasonable cosmology and morality all-in-wonder system every sunday for an hour or two vs the shiite suicide bomber. In my view it's more useful to simply ask people about what their religion means to them and what they enjoy most about it. Distilling that you may get results that are far more useful than what correlates to what bathroom you usually find yourself in.
Posted by: Luddite Chris at Mar 16, 2007 3:09:00 PM
Why are women more religious? I don't know, but I'm betting its the same set of reasons why more women than men buy into psychics and similar charlatans.
Posted by: ChemJerk at Mar 16, 2007 3:13:27 PM
On Sunday morning men have five options:
1. Lie in
2. Wash the car
3. Play sports
4. Read newspaper
5. Go to church with wife and kids
Women have three:
1. Briefly stay in bed with man
2. Do housework and look after kids
3. Do housework and go to church where kids get looked after
It seems a straight-forward question of optimising utility
Posted by: knackeredhack at Mar 16, 2007 3:38:49 PM
In reply to Chris Luddite who wonderd about the religious predisposition of other groups, such as gay men:
Funny you should bring this up because I was just thinking about it. I am a middle aged gay man and I go to church every Sunday. Just from my anecdotal experiences, there do indeed seem to be alot of gay men attending church. Sometimes, it seems to be old ladies, and gay men, sort of like at Las Vegas shows. There also seems to be alot of gay men in the clergy, not just Catholic priests, but the Protestant clergy as well. And as one of the earlier commenters said, it seems that all of the really scary religious people are men. That also is definitely true. Men (who claim to be straight) are in charge of and control Chrisitan institutions, which are then peopled mosstly by older and elderly women, plus a number of gay men. Thanks
Posted by: Daniel at Mar 16, 2007 3:40:42 PM
My wife is definitely more into the whole social scene at church than I am.
Posted by: WRLOYD at Mar 16, 2007 4:05:09 PM
I suggest that women feel a greater pressure to demonstrate how virtuous they are, and men feel a greater pressure to show how tough and controlled they are. So I would expect women to make more efforts to demonstrate their virtues eg vegetarianism, campaigns to save fluffy animals, and of course religion.
Posted by: anon at Mar 16, 2007 4:31:24 PM
>women are more moral than men...
This is a fiction created during the Victorian era.
Posted by: Peter at Mar 16, 2007 4:51:04 PM
These explanations are all preference-based, which seems strange given this is an economics blog. I was expecting more actual economic theories - some reference to different prices or incomes, for instance. Or something testable. Most of these are just saying "women are more religious because they are more x, y or z" which is pretty lazy if you ask me.
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Mar 16, 2007 4:55:08 PM
If religion evolved as a mechanism for encouraging adherence to social rules amd if women are more directed to social relationships than men then one would expect women to be more religious than men. They might also tend to be more superstitious by being more inclined to see meaning in personalised terms (i.e. more connections between a person and the universe, which is what superstition is generally about).
Posted by: Lorenzo at Mar 16, 2007 4:55:16 PM
Men figure that if they were God, they'd spend all their time in ... staff meetings
I loved Steve Sailer's answer in general, but this line made me wonder: do men think that God is an associate Dean?
Posted by: brianS at Mar 16, 2007 7:47:36 PM
I think there are several issues at stake here. In the modern west, the growth form of Christianity (evangelicalism) is particularly appealing to females. It's very emotional and relationship focused (when men designed the service it was liturgical and ritualistic). Secondly, women seem to want an alpha male who after marriage picks up beta traits (in particular sticking around to help raise her kids) boosting her enthusiasm for religion to knock some hard edges off her guy. Finally, churches focus on youth programs and activities so who isn't going to take advantage of a free place to take the kids for a few hours of adult time?
Posted by: nelsonal at Mar 16, 2007 8:31:53 PM
Coming from a Muslim culture, I don't feel that this affect is any less visible in Muslim societies, there is a very clear line between Muslim men and women when it comes to religion. On the other hand, due to certain social pressures Muslim men are generally prone to overstating their bond with religion.
Posted by: liesien at Mar 16, 2007 9:00:53 PM
Sorry, it's completely untrue, and typical of Veblen's arrogant generation. Rodney Stark and Alan Miller have looked at the empirics, and found women are more religious correcting for everything you can think of (Exploring the Religious Life). Their best explanation is yours, i.e. that women are more risk averse.
Posted by: will mcbride at Mar 16, 2007 9:15:41 PM
Pascal's wager is an absolutely terrible argument. Saying that women are more risk averse with regard to Pascal's Wager is like saying that women are more irrational or less able to spot obvious fallacies.
Posted by: J. at Mar 17, 2007 11:33:42 AM
Women have historically been responsible for maintaining the infrastructure of domestic and communal life in separation from the economic sphere, and for educating children in manners and mores from an early age. Religious observance is part of all that. Greater female participation in religion, therefore, is not simply a private spiritual decision or a psychological preference. Also, knackeredhack is correct. My mother valued church in part because it was one hour a week where she could sit quietly by herself and not be bothered by others' needs.
Posted by: Sue at Mar 17, 2007 11:48:59 AM
Another potential factor worth considering is the effect of developmental differences in men and women. My understanding is that men and women develop both physically and emotionally at different rates, with women tending to develop earlier. This lines up with my experience that women generally tend to explore religion earlier in life than men. Is it possible that women are ready to consider religious affiliation at a time when the choice is more likely to be permanent, say in high school, where men might tend to engage religion when their lives are in more transition, perhaps in college?
Posted by: Luke Gilman at Mar 17, 2007 1:48:17 PM
it is fun to read all these opinions of various men on how women are, but, from a female point of view, it is all socially determined. In my country (Romania), it is not so much women who are religious, as old women and lonely old women especially. Why? Because it is an easy, socially-acceptable way for them to connect and interact.
For old men, it is not so acceptable (since, after all, it is a women's business), so they keep out of church and go to the local pub (many times across the street from the church).
Posted by: avm at Mar 18, 2007 9:02:36 AM
Tyler, two more data points that buttress your claim--
1) I remember TIME's survey of American religion. I noted that twice as many women as men (18% to 9%) believed in _astrology_.
2) From political science, women have a tendency to (initially) support much more conservative parties. The GOP was the party of women from 1920 up through Eisenhower. Kuwait, after it allowed women to vote, saw major gains for its Islamist, 'anti-women' parties, from female voters.
Only after it is socially acceptable for there to be a 'women's movement' will the majority of women gravitate away from what was previously socially acceptable.
Posted by: Alex Forshaw at Mar 18, 2007 10:55:45 AM
Barro and McCleary would emphasize that church to going with your children could be viewed as an input rather than as a consumption. You are socializing your children. That job falls more so on mothers even in today's world where women are not part a "leisure class", perhaps more so because of divorce. There are also more mixed marriages these days (husband and wife of different denominations) with the kids going to Mass with Mom.
Posted by: John B. Chilton at Mar 18, 2007 12:17:54 PM
Perhaps men don't equate religiousity with church attendance or other measures, which would bias the measure in the first place.
I'm surprised nobody's brought up comparative advantage.
In the strictest Leave-it-to-beaver or caveman sort of way, he keeps her in a house, car and cash, and she keeps him connected socially.
Posted by: Aaron at Mar 18, 2007 10:18:56 PM
I agree with those who think women are more religious because they value to the social aspects of religiousity more than men.
My own mom was raised Presbyterian but now attends a Methodist church because that's where her friends are. My mother-in-law used to be very involved in her church until she had a falling-out with the pastor. Now she doesn't attend any church. Her beliefs didn't change, just the social scene.
In contrast, my atheist dad once attended a local mormon temple because he liked the members and the LDS emphasis on family values. But he didn't last long, because, as he put it, he couldn't take all the mystical BS. The social pull just wasn't strong enough for him.
Posted by: Christina at Mar 19, 2007 2:11:24 PM
Why are women so religious? I guess most women have a tendency to be more whimsical and enjoy fantasizing about a perfect world or the perfect man. Religion and the idea of heaven and Jesus Christ give a woman just that. I believe alot of women have a strong sense of faith in general, be it for religion or for another person or an idea as a whole. Religion also gives women this through belief and trust in the unseen. Also, religion can be considered the toal opposite of risk. Besides being questioned about their faith or being made fun of for their beliefs, religion poses literally no risk to women. It's more of a sancturary or second home for them. It provides shelter, love, and care and definitely a more perfect world. But, then again, I think it can just depend on the person. Why can't one man be more religious than one woman and vice versa? That could happen, but then it also could not. It all just depends on one's own beliefs and values about the nature of religion and faith.
Posted by: Leah at Mar 19, 2007 10:55:08 PM
A recent survey has shown that there are significantly more female atheists than male, at least in Western cultures. I'd also like to point out that religious martyrs and those with religious authority are also men in the ast majority of cases.
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