Risk Preferences and Gender Differences in Religiousness: Evidence from the World Values Survey

Abstract

Gender differences in risk preferences have been proposed to explain a large part of the widespread gender difference in religiousness. Using the same data and models that were used for a recent test of more general claims about the relationship between risk preference and religiousness, this study tests the more specific, but more provocative, idea that risk preferences account for a substantial portion of the gender difference in religiousness. The data are from the 1990-3 World Values Survey for the United States and Italy. Across four indicators of religiousness, analyses reveal no substantially consequential or statistically significant change in the estimated effect of gender on religiousness when risk preferences are added to regression models. In other words, while the data do support the notion that risk preferences are related to religiousness, they give no indication that this relationship accounts for the observed gender difference in religiousness.