Gender and religiosity

In the paper, the author deals with the relationship between gender and frequency of (ir)religiosity. Bearing in mind that the finding of more frequent religiosity of women is almost universal within Christianity, various psychological and sociological explanations are presented and dealt with. In the latter part of the paper, the author presents empirical survey data from Slovenia. The longitudinal analysis of correlation of gender and religiosity does not indicate any trend, though fluctuations are detected. A two step cross tabulation of education, gender and religiosity points to a minimal possibility of explanation by lower education among females. Regression analysis indicates that social variables remain robust, when gender is introduced into the model. It is concluded that factors of a sociological nature cannot explain the full difference in religiosity among males and females and that psychological factors immanent to gender should be taken into account.