Number of women choosing religion as a career is rising, statistics reveal

Jet, August 17, 1998

A growing number of women are entering the clergy and assuming church leadership posts, according to recent statistics.

In 1996, 43,542 women throughout the country described themselves as clergy, according to federal labor statistics cited in the Washington Post. Women now make up 12.3 percent of all U.S. clergy. In 1983, only 16, 408 women were in the clergy.

Many female clergy note that they offer young women new role models, help to "democratize" their congregations and perhaps even alter worshippers' traditional view of God as male.

However, in some denominations, women complain they are still having a hard time assuming senior pastor positions because many congregations prefer men in top pastoral positions.

About half of this country's 100 largest Christian denominations ordain female clergy, but the largest, the Roman Catholic Church, does not. Also, the second largest, the Southern Baptist Convention, discourages it.

Women are also attending seminaries in record numbers. Last year, one-third of the students at 229 graduate schools of Christian theology were women as compared with 10 percent in 1972, the Post noted.