A Power-control Theory of Gender and Religiosity*

The fact that women are more religious than men is one of the most consistent findings in the sociology of religion. Miller and Stark (2002) propose that a gender difference in riskpreference of physiological origin might explain this phenomenon. While acknowledging the utility of their risk-preference mechanism, we believe that their assumption regarding the genesis of this difference is a premature concession to biology. Returning to Miller’s original paper on gender, risk, and religiosity (Miller and Hoffmann 1995), we draw on power-control theory (PCT), developed in the work of John Hagan and colleagues, to introduce a plausible socialization account for these differences. PCT attributes the origins of gender differences in risk-preference to class-based differences in the socialization of children, with women raised in more patriarchal families—as indexed by the mother’s class position—more likely to be riskaverse than men raised in the same type of households and women raised in more egalitarian households. If religiosity and risk-aversion are related, then the gender difference in religiosity should be strongest among those raised by women of low socioeconomic status. We evaluate these claims using data from the General Social Survey. The results are consistent with a socialization explanation: women raised by high-SES mothers are less religious than women raised by low education mothers, but mother’s socioeconomic status has little effect on men’s chances of being irreligious and father’s socioeconomic status has a negligible effect on the gender difference in religiosity.