Donne di poca fede? Uno sguardo diacronico sulla secolarizzazione femminile in Italia

The gender aspect has been largely ignored in analyses of secularisation processes, although the latter subject has been widely debated by sociologists of religion. Italy is no exception : whereas the little research done into the topic from a diachronic perspective has generally focussed on the population as a whole, the studies analysing men’s and women’s religiosity separately have been characterized by a synchronic approach. This is why we know little or nothing about the secularisation process among women in Italy. This article aims at illing in the gap by presenting an initial analysis of female religious change over three decades from the various dimensions constituting the concept of religiosity. The 4 waves of European Values Study supply the fundamental data used. The analyses show that in the period under investigation female secularisation did not increase, which inding is here interpreted in the light of speciic theoretical perspectives on female secularisation applied to the Italian context