Ahead of the Trend

Ahead of the Trend Newsletter

Each month, Dr. Ryan Burge, associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, publishes two columns highlighting the latest news in religion research utilizing data from the ARDA. We are excited to share these Ahead of the Trend articles with you.

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Is It Better If Women Take Care of the Home and Family?

There’s a proposal to require both men and women to sign up for the selective service. While the ARDA doesn't have specific data about opinions of drafting women into military service, the General Social Survey has a question that is at least adjacent to the topic of gender roles and gender differences.

The statement is simply: “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.” There were four response options ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Here’s the best part — it’s been asked pretty consistently since 1977. So we can track how the public has viewed gender roles over the course of four and a half decades.

Are Women More Spiritual and Men More Religious?

There’s a stereotype that "spiritual, not religious" is a highly female-coded worldview, while atheism is more male-coded.

Utilizing data from the Fetzer Institute’s National Religion and Spirituality Survey, Dr. Burge seeks to discern how large the gender gap is in areas like beliefs and spiritual practices.

Who is Attending Online Church?

For many houses of worship, virtual services became an essential part of their ministry during the pandemic. In speaking with these ministry leaders, very few have shut down their livestream, but they also don’t know what to do with that audience.

There is now great data from 2022—provided by the Pew Research Center—which asked over 11,000 people about their worship attendance (both in-person and virtual).

Previous Ahead of the Trend Articles:

What Does It Mean to Be "Religious"? Consider this post as a little mini-lecture about how academics think about the measurement of religiosity. And also check out this module from the ARDA with a bunch more information about measuring religiosity.

Are Members of the Clergy Miserable? Being a full-time pastor or religious leader is an incredibly difficult job—emotionally, spiritually, relationally, and financially. The data reinforces that point. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research polled some pastors about this topic and more than half have seriously considered leaving their role, including one in ten who say that they have these thoughts often.

The Association of Religion Data Archives | Website