ABSTRACT
Previous research on women, work, and religion has taken different approaches in addressing the interconnections between them. Recently, social historians have reexamined the roles that women have occupied in religious institutions and social movements, rather than relegating them solely to their other historical roles in home and family (Sheils and Wood 1990), Sociologists, too, have considered linkages between women's work and religion. On one hand, investigators have explored religious involvement as a predictor of labor-force participation either as an extension of Weber's work ethic thesis or as an attempt to specify causal relationships between religious orthodoxy, gender-role attitudes, and employment. On the other hand, work has been used to predict church attendance, religious intensity, and religious orthodoxy. Before examining these studies of women and nonreligious work, however, let us turn to some other areas involving women's work roles within organized religion.
