Shaking the Traditional Order: Women's Conversion to New Christian Churches in Sub-Saharan Africa

Pablo Alvarez-Aragon, Catherine Guirkinger and Jean-Philippe Platteau

Working Papers from Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna

Abstract: In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute the majority of new Christian membership (including Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations), and this gender gap exceeds that of any other religion. Existing explanations for conversion to these churches emphasize demand for mutual help or informal insurance. We instead show that emancipation is central: these churches provide services that support women’s economic advancement and help them challenge patriarchal norms. Using experimental data from Benin, we find that women randomly offered an economic opportunity become more likely to convert, partly because these churches help counter witchcraft threats, a risk that disproportionately targets economically successful women. To assess external validity, we combine large African datasets with local variation in exposure to positive economic shocks using exogenous changes in cash crop prices and the implementation of world bank projects with a gender focus. Women are more likely to join new Christian churches following such shocks, especially where witchcraft beliefs are widespread. There, women work more, have fewer children, and exercise greater decision-making power, while both women and men reject traditional beliefs, rituals, and authorities.

JEL-codes: J16 O12 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://amsacta.unibo.it/8964/1/WP1224.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1224

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna ().