The more religious they are, the more likely Americans are to express traditional views about gender roles when asked about parenting and women’s participation in the paid labor force.
A majority of U.S. adults (55%) say it’s better for a child with two parents to have one stay at home to focus on the family, according to the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS). This includes 33% who say, in a follow-up question, that it doesn’t matter which parent stays home, 22% who say it’s generally better if the stay-at-home parent is the mother, and less than 1% who say it’s better if the father stays at home.
An additional 43% say children in two-parent families are “just as well off when [both of] their parents work outside the home.”
Among highly religious Americans (on a scale combining these four measures), 65% say it’s better when one parent stays home to focus on the family, including 34% who say it should be the mother and 31% who say it doesn’t matter which parent stays home. In contrast, 55% of Americans with relatively low levels of religious engagement say children are just as well off when both their parents work outside the home.69
At the same time, a majority of highly religious Americans (64%) say that rising numbers of women in the workforce has been a change for the better. Even larger percentages of U.S. adults with lower levels of religious engagement hold this view.
Read more on how Americans in various religious groups answer questions about:
Parents and child care
About one-third of U.S. Muslims (36%) and a quarter of U.S. Christian adults (27%) believe that children with two parents are better off when the mother stays home to focus on the family. One-fifth of U.S. Buddhists say this, as do 18% of Hindus and 14% of Jews.
Among Christians, the share who say children are best off when their mother stays home includes:
- 41% of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (widely known as Mormons)
- 35% of evangelical Protestants
- 26% of Orthodox Christians
- 25% of Catholics
Roughly one-in-three Christians (32%) say children are better off when one parent stays home to focus on the family, but that it doesn’t matter which one. And 39% of Christians say children of two parents are just as well off when both parents work outside the home.
The view that children with two parents are better off when the father is the one to stay home to take care of the family is extremely rare across all religious groups.
Women in the paid labor force
Majorities of all religious groups say that more women in the workforce is a “change for the better.” Support for this view has ticked up slightly or stayed the same among most religious groups since the question was asked in the 2014 RLS.
Among Christians, 69% of respondents believe that women’s increased labor force participation is a “change for the better.” This share is highest among members of historically Black Protestant churches (77%), mainline Protestants (76%) and Catholics (75%). It is somewhat lower among Orthodox Christians (64%), Latter-day Saints (61%) and evangelical Protestants (60%).
Large majorities of adherents of non-Christian religions look favorably on the increased number of women in the workforce. For example, support for this position is expressed by 89% of Hindus, 81% of Jewish Americans, 76% of Buddhists and 66% of Muslims.
Among the religiously unaffiliated, nearly nine-in-ten atheists (86%) and agnostics (87%) see women’s increased participation in the labor force as a change for the better. About three-fourths of those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” (77%) say the same.
