Lucie Rychla
September 15th, 2015

Share

A new survey by YouGov for DR shows Danish women are more religious than Danish men.

According to the results, 52 percent of the interviewed women called themselves believers, while the same applies to only 36 percent of men.

More women attend church and meditate
Similarly, some 65 percent of women believe there is a plane of existence beyond our one on Earth, while only 46 percent of men believe that.

More women (44 percent) than men (32 percent) said they believe in God.

Also, some 38 percent of the interviewed women said they had participated in a church service in the past year or meditated (14 percent), while only 28 percent of men had taken part in a Sunday mass or sat on a meditation cushion (6 percent).

More women in religious communities
According to Marie Vejrup Nielsen from the Centre for Contemporary Religion at Aarhus University, who helped conduct the study for DR, very little is known about why women are more religious than men.

“We can see that women are over-represented compared to men when it comes to practicing religion or when it comes to membership of religious communities,” Nielsen told DR.

“Women play a central role in the transfer of religious beliefs from one generation to another, and it is often a woman who maintains religious traditions such as baptisms and weddings in the family.”

Societal expectations
Gender researcher Lene Bull Christiansen from Roskilde University believes the societal expectations of women are most likely the main reason more women than men are religious rather than women’s personal characteristics.

The YouGov survey was conducted in April 2015 for DR History and Trust in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Religion at Aarhus University.

A representative sample of 1,006 Danes aged 18-74 years was selected.