Religiosity and social groups
Gender and religiosity
Reasons for gender differences
Ethnicity and religiosity
Reasons for ethnic differences
Davie: there are gender differences in terms of religious practice, belief, self identification, private prayer
Most churchgoers are female and they are more likely than men to attend church regularly - Brierley: female churchgoers outnumber males by almost half a million
British Social Attitudes Survey: More women than men (55% vs 44%) say they have a religion
Ferguson and Hussey: In all major faiths in the UK except Sikhism, women are likely than men to practise their religion
Miller and Hoffman: women express greater interest in religion and have a stronger personal commitment to it
Miller and Hoffman: 3 main reasons for women's higher levels of religiosity
1: they suggest that gender differences in risk-taking are a reasons for differences in religiosity -- by not being religious, people are risking that religion might be right and they will be condemned to hell -- Men are more likely to take the risk of not being religious due to being less risk-taking
2:Women are more religious because they are socialised to be more passive, obedient, and caring - these are qualities valued by most religions, so it follows that women are more likely than men to be attracted to religion
However, men with same qualities are also more likely to be religious
3:Miller and Hoffman: women's gender roles mean they are more likely than men to work part-time so they have more time to organise their time to participate in religious activities
Bruce: women's religiosity is a result of their lower levels of involvement in paid work - links this to secularisation processes such as rationalism -- this has driven religion out of the male-dominated public sphere of work, confining it to the private sphere of family and personal life - the sphere that women are more concerned with
Despite the decline, religion remains more attractive to women than to men for at least two reasons:
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Women and New Age: Heelas and Woodhead: 80% of the participants in the holistic milieu in Kendal were female -- women may also be attracted to the New Age because it emphasises the importance of being 'authentic' rather than merely acting our roles
Bruce: there are twice as many women as men involved in sects -- Stark and Bainbridge: argue that people may participate in sects because they offer compensators for organismic, ethical and social deprivation
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One idea is that most ethnic minorities originate from poorer countries with traditional cultures, both of which produce higher levels of religious belief and practice -- however, this disregards the impact of their experiences as immigrants and as minorities in a new society, and how this may give religion a new role as cultural defence and cultural transition
Bird: religion among minorities can be a basis for community solidarity, a means of preserving one's culture and language, and a way of coping with oppression in racist society -- in the case of black African and Caribbean Christians, many found that white churches in the UK did not actively welcome them and some turned to founding or joining black-led churches, especially Pentecostal churches
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Age and religious participation
General pattern: the older the person is, the more likely they are to attend religious services
Reasons for age differences
Voas and Crockett: 3 possible explanations for age differences in religiosity
1) The Ageing Effect: the view that people turn to religion as they get older. E.g. Kendal Project = Heelas argues that people become more interested in spirituality as they age and as we approach death, we naturally become more concerned about spiritual matters and the afterlife, repentance of past misdeeds. As a result, we are more likely to go to church
2) The period or cohort effect: people born during a particular period may be more or less likely to be religious because of the particular events they lived through, such as war or rapid social changes
3) Secularisation: as religion declines in importance, each generation becomes less religious than the one before it
Voas and Crockett
they argue that secularisation is the main reason why younger people are less religious than older people - they found that in each succeeding generation, only half as many people are religious compared with the generation before it