Dr Isabella Kasselstrand and Dr Christopher Kollmeyer have recently published a new article in Sociology of Religion examining the relationship between women’s employment and secularization. The article is entitled "Secularization and Gender: A Global Study of the Effects of Women’s Employment on Religious Decline" and can be viewed here.
Drawing on longitudinal, cross-national data, the study shows that increases in women’s labor force participation are associated with declines in religiosity, even after accounting for a range of social, economic, and political factors. This relationship holds across Western societies and several other cultural-religious contexts, though not in nondemocratic countries. The findings underscore women’s central role in religious socialization and family life, and they highlight how changes in women’s structural position in both the economy and the family are integral to understanding patterns of religious decline in the contemporary world.