Existential Security and religious gender gap in Iran: An within-Country Comparative Study

The statement that "women are more religious than men" is one of the few general statements that social scientists, especially sociologists of religion, have consensus on. Nevertheless, explaining why is considered a scientific puzzle, and several theories have been proposed to explain this gender gap in religiosity. This research paper was organized with the aim of examining the empirical validity of the theory of existential security in Iran, around the question of to what extent the indicators of existential security can explain the gender gap of religiosity in Iran? In this regard, the arguments of critical safety theory were first formulated in the form of research hypotheses. Then, by assign the unit of analysis to "province" and using the within country comparative method, the hypotheses were compared with the data of all provinces in Iran to assess the degree of conformity of the predictions of the theory with empirical evidence. Finally, the findings of the empirical test of the relationship between existential security and the gender gap of religiosity in Iran by within country comparative method and inter-provincial analysis showed that none of the hypotheses representing the theory of existential security are confirmed. In fact, the findings of this study failed to provide seriously and reliability support for the theory of existential security in explaining the gender gap of religiosity in the context of the Muslim population and the provinces of Iran.