Isn’t it possible that the narrowing of the gender gap among evangelicals is due to a lot of liberal evangelical women leaving the church? A lot of the “deconstruction” movement and criticisms of evangelicalism has been led by women like Kristin De Mez, Rachel Held Evans, etc.
Yes, and this also touches on much more diverse questions. In general, insofar as self-identifying as "evangelical" seems toxic for everyone from center right to far left, then all kinds of data about the percentage of self-identified evangelicals that do X is going to be affected. And this is not just about outsiders looking in. It relates to the megachurches and wannabe megachurches that are rebranding as "revolution" or "adventure" or what-not which also creates huge margins of error in a lot of data.
That certainly seems plausible. The fact that the general gap shrunk more among Evangelicals than Catholics (a less conservative group) would be consistent with this "big sort." I'd be interested to see the regression analysis for the Mainline gender gap.
I wonder if it would be possible, with admittedly large error bars, to estimate how large this effect might be.
As Ryan highlighted, among 18-35 white evangelicals, women are MORE likely to identify as Republican than men are. But this is also the demographic in which men might be starting to outnumber women, and probably the demographic hit hardest by "deconstruction."
Though it's interesting that there's no comparable partisan effect among white Catholics, which if anything seem to have a stronger bent towards young men than evangelicals do.
There is an interesting spike in Republican Identity among Buddhist and Muslim Women age 36-50 that completely goes against the pattern. The only other spike is young Evangelical Women.
I wonder if the spike for Buddhist and Muslim women in early middle age is a reaction to the triad of COVID school closures, urban unrest, and transgender issues, especially regarding children. The majority of women between 36-50 are the mothers of school age children, Buddhist and Muslim women are disproportionately first or second generation Americans who own small businesses in large urban areas that were targets of riots and violence, and they also disproportionately send their children to urban public schools that closed for longer and have been more radical in their embrace of the Sexual Revolution that white majority suburban and rural schools.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting break in the pattern.
What strikes me about the graphs on identifying as Republican by age & religious affiliation is the reflection of the bromide “if you’re not a Democrat/liberal when you’re young, you don’t have a heart; if you’re not a Republican/conservative when you’re old, you haven’t got a brain.” This is especially true among those identifying as Christian with notable exceptions with nWE & BP.
Jewish, Muslims & atheists seem also to buck the trend but older Buddhist men & older Hindu women seem to spike relatively with age (possibly due to sample size?).
It bears a deeper dive as to what differences are hidden within basically aggregated groups identified by placeholders, ignoring many other factors within the groups, for the little anomalies.
Statistically one might control for factors but at times better information lies in the interaction of factors rather than simplifying them.
I feel like the secular media focused on the gender gap more in the 2024 election than ever before. Perhaps this is because most are atheist/agnostic and they began noticing it widening among their peer group. While in reality the gender gap lessened among most Americans (because more Americans are religious than non-religious).
Isn’t it possible that the narrowing of the gender gap among evangelicals is due to a lot of liberal evangelical women leaving the church? A lot of the “deconstruction” movement and criticisms of evangelicalism has been led by women like Kristin De Mez, Rachel Held Evans, etc.
Yes, and this also touches on much more diverse questions. In general, insofar as self-identifying as "evangelical" seems toxic for everyone from center right to far left, then all kinds of data about the percentage of self-identified evangelicals that do X is going to be affected. And this is not just about outsiders looking in. It relates to the megachurches and wannabe megachurches that are rebranding as "revolution" or "adventure" or what-not which also creates huge margins of error in a lot of data.
https://substack.com/@ryanburge/note/c-145317658
and
https://substack.com/home/post/p-131507850
That certainly seems plausible. The fact that the general gap shrunk more among Evangelicals than Catholics (a less conservative group) would be consistent with this "big sort." I'd be interested to see the regression analysis for the Mainline gender gap.
Yes, this was my first thought too.
I wonder if it would be possible, with admittedly large error bars, to estimate how large this effect might be.
As Ryan highlighted, among 18-35 white evangelicals, women are MORE likely to identify as Republican than men are. But this is also the demographic in which men might be starting to outnumber women, and probably the demographic hit hardest by "deconstruction."
Though it's interesting that there's no comparable partisan effect among white Catholics, which if anything seem to have a stronger bent towards young men than evangelicals do.
There is an interesting spike in Republican Identity among Buddhist and Muslim Women age 36-50 that completely goes against the pattern. The only other spike is young Evangelical Women.
I wonder if the spike for Buddhist and Muslim women in early middle age is a reaction to the triad of COVID school closures, urban unrest, and transgender issues, especially regarding children. The majority of women between 36-50 are the mothers of school age children, Buddhist and Muslim women are disproportionately first or second generation Americans who own small businesses in large urban areas that were targets of riots and violence, and they also disproportionately send their children to urban public schools that closed for longer and have been more radical in their embrace of the Sexual Revolution that white majority suburban and rural schools.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting break in the pattern.
I think there are probably other factors, too.
What strikes me about the graphs on identifying as Republican by age & religious affiliation is the reflection of the bromide “if you’re not a Democrat/liberal when you’re young, you don’t have a heart; if you’re not a Republican/conservative when you’re old, you haven’t got a brain.” This is especially true among those identifying as Christian with notable exceptions with nWE & BP.
Jewish, Muslims & atheists seem also to buck the trend but older Buddhist men & older Hindu women seem to spike relatively with age (possibly due to sample size?).
It bears a deeper dive as to what differences are hidden within basically aggregated groups identified by placeholders, ignoring many other factors within the groups, for the little anomalies.
Statistically one might control for factors but at times better information lies in the interaction of factors rather than simplifying them.
Still an interesting picture.
I feel like the secular media focused on the gender gap more in the 2024 election than ever before. Perhaps this is because most are atheist/agnostic and they began noticing it widening among their peer group. While in reality the gender gap lessened among most Americans (because more Americans are religious than non-religious).