The Religious Gender Gap and Presidential Approval

Religion and gender have been found to play significant roles in shaping po- litical attitudes such as party identification and ideology. While much of the focus has been on the religion gap and the gender gap, little empirical research has explored how religion affects the political attitudes of men and women differently. Using a 2004 Pew survey, this study examines how religion and gender interact to affect four different areas of President Bush\u27s approval in 2004: general approval, economic policy approval, foreign policy approval, and social policy approval. The results support a religious gender gap theory, where the effect of gender on presi- dential approval varies across levels of religious commitment. For general, economic policy, and foreign policy approval, secular men and women are more similar on average than highly religious men and women. For social policy approval, highly religious men and women are more similar on average than secular men and women