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Religion and Gender Equality Worldwide: A Country-Level Analysis

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  • Schnabel, Landon

    (Indiana University)

Abstract

Does religion help or hinder gender equality worldwide? Are some major world religions more conducive to equality than others? This study answers these questions using country-level data assembled from multiple sources. Much of the research on religion and gender has focused on the relationship between individual religious belief and practice and gender attitudes. This study, alternatively, compares the macro effects of the proportion of religious adherents in a country on two indicators of material gender equality: the United Nations Gender Inequality Index and the Social Watch Gender Equity Index. Comparing the world’s four largest religious groups reveals that the largest distinction is not between any of the three largest faiths—Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—but between the religious and the non-religious. The more non-religious people in a country, the more gender equal that country tends to be. This finding holds when accounting for human development and other country-level factors, as well as in instrumental variable analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Schnabel, Landon, 2017. "Religion and Gender Equality Worldwide: A Country-Level Analysis," SocArXiv fzcwp, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:fzcwp
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/fzcwp
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Noland, Marcus, 2005. "Religion and economic performance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1215-1232, August.
    2. Seguino, Stephanie, 2011. "Help or Hindrance? Religion's Impact on Gender Inequality in Attitudes and Outcomes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1308-1321, August.
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