In Gen Z, men are more likely than women to go to church
The Daily Article
The Denison Forum
4.9 • 576 Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Church represents a source of mental health problems for a relatively large portion of Gen Z women, while Gen Z men are finding Christianity one institution that isn’t “skeptical of them as a class.” So one of the best ways we can reach out to young people is to make our communities of faith a place where they can be welcome and safe while presenting the gospel truth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Friday, October the 4th, 2024. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins of the Denison |
| 0:08.7 | Forum, narrating today's article written by Dr. Ryan Dennison. For the vast majority of modern history, |
| 0:16.9 | women have outnumbered men when it comes to who shows up most often at church. |
| 0:21.7 | In fact, many scholars have come to see it as something of a universal truth. |
| 0:26.7 | However, the latest research shows the pattern has started to change. |
| 0:31.3 | As Ruth Graham describes, for the first time in modern American history, |
| 0:35.8 | young men are now more religious than their female peers. |
| 0:39.3 | They attend services more often and are more likely to identify as religious, end quote. |
| 0:45.0 | And this trend appears to be unique to Gen Z, since men are more likely than women to be religiously unaffiliated in every other generation. Now the question experts are asking |
| 0:57.0 | is, why? Part of the explanation is that women are simply leaving the church faster than men. A poll from |
| 1:04.0 | earlier this year found that Gen Z men are only 11% less likely to be religiously affiliated than those in the baby boom generation. |
| 1:13.5 | However, the gap between women in those generations is nearly two and a half times as large. |
| 1:19.4 | Consequently, it appears that the issue has at least as much to do with more women leaving the church |
| 1:25.2 | as it does with more men deciding to stay. At the same time, |
| 1:29.1 | Gen Z's religious affiliation still represents a shift in the right direction from the millennials |
| 1:35.0 | above them who are the least religiously affiliated generation alive today. So what has caused |
| 1:41.5 | this shift and, more importantly, what can it teach us about sharing the gospel |
| 1:46.2 | with both men and women in those younger generations? As Graham points out, religious affiliation |
| 1:52.4 | is one of many ways in which men and women are on different trajectories among young people |
| 1:57.9 | today. For example, Gen Z women are more educated than Gen Z men, earn a higher income in prominent |
| 2:05.3 | cities like New York and Washington, less likely to say they want to become parents by a |
| 2:11.0 | margin of 12 points, more likely to report feelings like they are treated unequally in most churches. |
... |
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