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Over the last 50 years, the Netherlands has undergone a process of massive secularisation, in terms of the decline of institutionalised religion. This study tests a wide range of explanations for this process, built on modernisation theory, with high quality survey data. In addition, despite modernisation and the rise of gender equality in the area of social structural location, a religious gender gap persists in the Netherlands with women being more religious than men. With a comprehensive model of social and psychological differences between Dutch men and women, this study contributes to an explanation for this gap.

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Joris Kregting is a researcher of Kaski (research centre for religion and society) and of the chair Emperical and practical religious studies of the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen.

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