Analysis: Women aren’t leaving religion in droves. But their participation is in decline

One of the most consistent findings in the sociology of religion is that women are more religious than men. However, data from the recent Pew Religious Landscape Survey indicates the gender balance is shifting.

Sparked by this subtle data signal, some now insist that women are leaving religion in droves, and that politics explain why. The data say otherwise.

A year ago, political columnist Jill Filipovic suggested that young men are returning to religion because it facilitates misogyny, at the same time that “young women are leaving in droves” to escape it. “Why would the more feminist young women of today opt into institutions that make them second-class citizens,” she asks.

Filipovic is not alone in believing that religious participation divides neatly along these politically-informed lines. It’s an idea that has found traction on both sides of the culture war. Just as some suggest that women are leaving en masse to outrun sexist policies and practices, others contend that toxic feminism has poisoned women against religious belief.

The truth, however, is more complex than these narratives allow. While the reasons for declining religiosity in women are not entirely clear, what is clear is that neither sexism nor feminist ideology fully explain them.

One part of these claims that can be laid to rest is that women are leaving “in droves.”

Pew reports that “women continue to report higher levels of religious affiliation, belief and practice than men do.” While the gap between men’s and women’s religiosity is narrowing, women are still more religious than men: “There are still no birth cohorts in which men are significantly more religious than women. In every age group, women are at least as religious as men, and in many birth cohorts, women are significantly more religious than men.”

Among Latter-day Saints, whether men or women are more religious depends on which data you’re looking at.

For example, the Cooperative Election Survey shows most active Latter-day Saints are still women. According to the CES, in 2024 Latter-day Saints were 54% female, and that rises to 56% among weekly attenders. Pew reports that 52% of self-identified Latter-day Saints are male, while 47% are female (.5 percent indicated something else), but for weekly attenders the split is nearly even, at 49% women and 50% men. The conflicting numbers between Pew and the CES reveal the imprecise nature of survey sampling for a small population.

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the best we can say is that women may be stepping back from participation at slightly higher rates than men. However, the numbers are fuzzy enough that men may still outpace them or be about equal.

While women have not overtaken men, the fact that women’s religious attendance rates are approaching those of men (which is also declining) is cause for serious concern. Women are the primary transmitters of religion across generations, with all the benefits to our individual and collective well-being this confers.

As Jake Meador writes for the Atlantic. “Participation in a religious community generally correlates with better health outcomes and longer life, higher financial generosity, and more stable families — all of which are desperately needed in a nation with rising rates of loneliness, mental illness, and alcohol and drug dependency,”

Women are indispensable to the functioning of our congregations, but religion makes women’s lives better, too. As the Wheatley Institute recently found, “highly religious men and women reported the highest levels of relationship quality, emotional closeness and sexual satisfaction compared to other groups. They also reported significantly higher levels of shared decision making, fewer money problems, and more frequent patterns of forgiveness, commitment, and kindness than their less-religious peers.” Religiosity in men also significantly reduces the risks of violence for women.

President Russell M. Nelson put it this way: “If the world should ever lose the moral rectitude of its women, the world would never recover.” To the women of the church he said,“We need your inspired wisdom in your family, ward, and stake councils, as well as in other places of influence throughout the world. Your family, the Church, and the world need you!”

Part of addressing declining religiosity in women is recognizing that the numbers don’t point to a floodgate that has burst, but rather a slow leak that’s getting faster. When a floodgate bursts, the source of the problem is obvious; but as any homeowner will tell you, the origins of a leak can be very difficult to trace.

More attention is needed to potential sources of women’s declining religiosity, and the influences that are undermining their faith.