More than 10 years ago, Bailey Schwartz, a native of Michigan, was invited to attend a nondenominational church with a friend. Although the experience was new to her, Bailey, a teenager at the time, started going on a regular basis.
She stopped attending after two years — disillusioned by what she described as inconsistencies.
“I took a step back and saw that things I thought were valuable — like community, justice, compassion and loving your neighbor — weren’t being exemplified in the church,” she said. “We were told to love everybody, but there was an asterisk to it. There seemed to be exceptions if you were gay … or if you were an outspoken woman. It was really disorienting, because I wanted to be a part of this community, but I realized it wasn’t healthy for me.”
Schwartz, who is now 27, represents a trend that has been highlighted in research recently released by the Survey Center on American Life: young women are leaving church in unprecedented numbers, citing dissatisfaction with traditional norms and gender roles.
According to the research leads, Daniel A. Cox, the director of the Survey Center, and Kelsey Eyre Hammond, program coordinator for the Survey Center, this marks the first time that the exodus among young women is outpacing that of young men since the organization started tracking church attendance by gender.
The 2023 survey of nearly 5,500 Americans showed, by generations, the gender breakdown of those who reported disaffiliating from religious institutions:
- For Gen Z, 54% women/46% men
- For millennials, 47% women/53% men
- For Gen X, 45% women/55% men
- For baby boomers, 43% women/57% men
The trend among Gen Z women seems to point to a widening gap between societal views on gender roles and those of traditional congregations, Cox said.
“A lot of young women are expressing concern that a lot of places of worship don’t treat men and women equally,” Cox said. “They feel women are considered second-class citizens, with congregations placing restrictions on their autonomy and ability to ascend. They’re not afforded the same kind of leadership opportunities, which runs smack up against a broader culture that tells young women you can be anything and do anything that you put your mind to.”
Hammond also noted that there is a disconnect between the messages young women hear at home and those they hear in the church.
“When you’re raised in a world where you are told you can do everything that a man can do and then your religious institution isn’t actually allowing you to do all the same things that a man can do, that creates some cognitive dissonance,” she said. “For a lot of women, that’s not something they’re interested in navigating. I think that’s a big driver of the increased disaffiliation. If they’re not feeling valued by this organization, they may ask, ‘Why should I continue to serve and contribute to it?’”
The gender shift among the Gen Z population is remarkable, Cox said, because women have traditionally been the backbone of congregations.
“Historically, young men had been the least religious and most likely to defect and to leave their formative religious commitments, while young women were not,” he said. “Although there’s still not a huge gap between the religiosity of young men and young women, the trajectory was notable, especially if this pattern continues.”
In previous generations, less religious men would often be brought back into the fold by more religiously minded women playing critical roles in congregations, Cox noted. “Even if they’re not in leadership roles, women are volunteering, organizing, checking in on people, and leading their spouses and maybe their children in church experiences.”
While the research does not suggest a solution, Hammond and Cox said congregations that focus on community seem to fare better with member engagement than other congregations.
Congregations that encourage a sense of social and civic responsibility seem to do better, according to recent research, Cox said. “They instill a sense of caring for the people around them, even people who are not members of the church or congregation,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons Latter-day Saints congregations are doing so well in terms of retaining members.
“A lot of our data shows that a sense of civic responsibility among Latter-day Saints congregants is higher than anyone else, in terms of volunteering, spending time in their church and important extracurricular activities,” he added. “I think that helps create a kind of web of interconnectedness.”
That sense of community was one of the draws for Schwartz, who started attending church again recently. She said she changed her perspective after her role as a community organizer led her to Allisonville Christian Church in Indianapolis.
“I felt for a long time that there was a part of me missing, and it was really that community element for me,” she said. “At the age of 27, I found that my values can coexist in a church space among people who are serious about compassion, empathy, loving your neighbor, and creating a world where justice and peace can exist. That’s what’s important to me.
“That was not present in my first go-round with church, where there was more of a hierarchy,” she said.
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