(RNS) — As Gen Z women and men drift apart on multiple dimensions in American life, they are also increasingly making different political and religious choices.
Exit polls show that compared with the 2020 presidential election, the youth vote was more divided along gender lines in 2024. Recent polling on President Donald Trump’s second term also reveals dramatic declines among young women in support for the president, compared with a more muted drop in support among young men.
An important gender-based story is also emerging about Gen Z’s relationship with religion — but not necessarily the one currently dominating many headlines.
Numerous recent stories suggest a religious revival is afoot among the nation’s youngest men, driven by the siren call of a more masculine, traditionalist Christianity, echoing a larger conversation about Gen Z men’s growing embrace of traditional gender roles in the age of Trump. Even the long-secular and male-saturated world of Silicon Valley, some argue, is embracing Christianity, though others maintain the real religion embodied by tech bros is the worship of artificial intelligence.
Yet, trend data from my organization, PRRI, does not paint a portrait of American young men suddenly becoming more pious in recent years. On most indicators, Gen Z men’s religious behavior has largely stayed the same in the past decade or so.
Instead, it is American Gen Z women who have moved religiously.
Take religious affiliation, for example. The PRRI Census of American Religion shows that in 2013, 35% of young men (ages 18 to 29) said they were religiously unaffiliated. Last year, that percentage remained the same. Yet, young women (ages 18 to 29) have increasingly shed any sort of religious label over that time. In 2013, 29% of young women had no religious affiliation; by 2024, it was 40%.
Beyond young women’s growing adoption of the unaffiliated moniker, levels of church attendance and prayer among young women have dropped more than 10 percentage points since 2016. Their religious behaviors now echo young men’s, who, again, saw little changes on those measures.
“Religious Behaviors Among Young Americans, by Gender” (Graphic courtesy of PRRI)
While relatively few young Americans say religion is the most important thing in their life, the rates at which young men say so have barely budged in the past decade — from 16% in 2013, to 17% in 2023, the last time PRRI asked that question. However, the percentage of young women who say religion is the most important thing in their life has decreased by more than 40% — from 21% in 2013, to just 12% a decade later.
“Shift in Religiosity Among Young Americans, by Gender” (Graphic courtesy of PRRI)
In fact, the picture of religion today among Americans under 30 shows young women and men have become largely similar — which itself is a big change. Historically, women have been more religious than men.
In the Christian tradition, women have long provided the organizational infrastructure that builds community within the walls of the church, whether through staffing altar guilds, providing meals for potluck dinners and shut-ins, teaching Sunday school, maintaining prayer lists or organizing charitable work in their towns and cities.
Theories differ as to why women have historically been more religious than men, but some posit that since women are less risk-averse by nature, religion may provide them with solace in planning for the afterlife. Religion may give greater reassurance to women, who have been more economically and physically vulnerable. And since the doors to professional and public life historically have been less open to women, they often found social validation in their religious lives compared with men. Houses of worship provided women with a socially sanctioned outlet to engage in life outside the home for much of American history.
While American women have made great gains professionally, there has likely been a time-lag effect when it comes to religiosity so that older American women especially remain more religious than their male counterparts, even today. However, Gen Z appears to be the generation for which the residue of gendered religiosity has ceased to matter as much.
(Photo by Joel Muniz/Unsplash/Creative Commons)
It’s not hard to see why. We’ve raised a generation of young women to expect equality in all aspects of life, whether encouraging them to enter male-dominated fields such as STEM, to participate in organized sports or to engage in civic and political life. Many older Gen Z women came of age during the first Trump presidency and the #MeToo movement, which helped young women develop a strong sense of gender consciousness. Indeed, my research finds Gen Z women are far more likely to identify as feminists than women from any other generation.
While views toward the role of women as leaders in religious traditions vary widely — most mainline Protestant, Black Protestant and Jewish denominations have long ordained women — the reinforcement of extreme patriarchal views in many fundamentalist traditions, which countenance that God’s order demands women stay home, raise children and remain subservient to their husbands, holds little appeal for many young women today. If a common perception among many young women today is American religion is doubling down on traditional gender roles, it is little wonder young women have left in droves.
And the persistence of conservative churches in the United States in denying marriage equality and viewing the mere existence of transgender individuals as sinful is likely contributing to young women’s retreat from religion. Young women are almost twice as likely as their male counterparts to identify as LGBTQ. Last year, PRRI found 60% of young Americans who disaffiliated from religion did so over their faith tradition’s negative teachings about LGBTQ people — a much higher rate than other Americans who left their religion.
Some research also suggests Gen Z men who have remained actively part of many Christian churches may be drawn to certain faith traditions that reinforce traditional gender roles, such as the Southern Baptist Convention.
Churchgoing Gen Z men are also likely susceptible to the growing influence of reactionary voices online, such as “TheoBros,” whose embrace of a militant masculinity — one that believes women should not only remain subservient to men but even lose the right to vote — may hold appeal for young men who believe they have become increasingly emasculated in the larger culture, as political leaders like Vice President JD Vance are quick to claim.
While the young men remaining active in many Christian churches might find the appeal of traditional gender norms a good reason to stay, the reality is there is little evidence Gen Z men are experiencing a religious revival, as our data at PRRI demonstrates.
But the more revealing story when it comes to gender, Gen Z and religion is the precipitous drop in religiosity among young women today. It shows just one more way Gen Z women continue to defy historical norms.
(Melissa Deckman is CEO of PRRI. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
