Are women leaving churches because they feel excluded from leadership roles?
We do not (yet) have a study of people who have left church. However, we have analysed responses from current church attenders and local church leaders about their experience of church life.
An overview
About local church leaders
- Women are under-represented in local senior leader roles. Some 22% of women hold senior roles in local churches (senior minister/pastor/priest)
- Women hold senior leadership roles across different faith traditions (e.g. Mainstream Protestant, Pentecostal).
Denominations with the highest proportion of women in senior leadership roles
- the Salvation Army,
- C3 Churches (Pentecostal), and
- the Uniting Church.
About local church leaders in senior roles (i.e. ministers/pastors/priests)
- Women are under-represented in local senior leader roles. Some 22% of women hold senior roles in local churches (senior minister/pastor/priest)
- Women hold senior leadership roles across different faith traditions
- Denominations with the highest proportion of women in senior leadership roles are the Salvation Army, C3 Churches (Pentecostal) and the Uniting Church.
Local church senior leaders by denomination and gender
|
Tope three denominations
|
Female
|
|
Salvation Army
|
53.10%
|
|
C3 Churches (Pentecostal)
|
40.50%
|
|
Uniting Church
|
38.00%
|
Source: 2021 NCLS Leader Survey (n=2247)
