(ANALYSIS) Before this month’s synod at the Vatican, Pope Francis took the question of allowing women deacons off the agenda, referring this and other hot-button issues to study groups. That distressed many Catholic activists. Leaving aside this matter of ordained ministry, sisters in religious orders and lay women could fill many influential church posts monopolized by male priests.

But they rarely do.

And then, what about women’s role in the three other major Christian branches — Orthodoxy, Protestantism (including Anglicans) and the “independent” category that includes Indigenous churches that are especially prominent in Africa? Women’s status compared with men across the entirety of world Christianity is surveyed in a new online article in the Review of Religion Research titled “Gender Gaps in World Christianity: Membership, Participation, and Leadership.”

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The implicit viewpoint of the piece is that churches should open all offices equally to women. That, of course, directly opposes the unbroken tradition of all-male clergy in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and the belief of some Protestant denominations, the largest such in the world being America’s Southern Baptist Convention.

Author Gina Zurlo asserts that “Christianity has presented active barriers to women’s opportunities, and this is difficult to change.” Moreover, the faith’s population center is shifting from the West toward Global South countries where, apart from churches, the cultures limit women’s status and activities. For instance, the article notes that nations like the Central African Republic, Haiti and Papua New Guinea are majority Christian and at the same time have some of the lowest ratings on the United Nations’ Gender Inequality Index.

Zurlo has an unusual two-sided resume. She is the co-director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at a key “evangelical” school, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, the co-author of its World Christian Encyclopedia and the editor of its continuously updated World Christian Database available from Brill by subscription. Simultaneously, she has solid “mainline” credentials as a visiting lecturer at Harvard Divinity School and former research fellow at Boston University.

Her various numbers come from CSGC, which tracks all countries, the 84 nations in Pew Research Center surveys and the 65 in the World Values Survey sponsored by international social scientists.

Pew says 83% of the worldwide female population counts as affiliated with a faith, compared with 80% of men. With Christianity, there’s universal agreement that women outnumber men in membership. In the African nation of Burkina Faso, one estimate puts women at a remarkable 90% of active membership, and standard surveys record that women are 63% of the small Christian minorities in both Israel and Mongolia.

Zurlo explains some of the challenges in nailing down good numbers, with the probability that women are undercounted. Take Australia: A National Church Life Survey of the three major church bodies — Catholic, Anglican and Uniting — put female attendance at 58%, 61% and 63%, respectively. But the comparable government census numbers were 52%, 54% and 56%.

As with membership, participation in worship services and daily prayer again find women overall are more devout than men in all kinds of church situations. And women on average say religion is very important to them more often than men do.

Which brings us to the third topic, opportunities for church leadership, which is Zurlo’s major interest. The numbers reflect the Catholic and Orthodox belief against women priests. Policies of the Protestants and independents vary widely.

Some 45% of the world’s Christians belong to churches that allow women pastors. A second aspect, crucial and often less discussed, is that 83% are in churches that allow women to serve on their decision-making bodies. The last point, about local or regional councils, is the case for 100% of the world Orthodox population — but only 74% of Catholics, and a low of 57% for independents. So 17% of the world’s Christians are in churches that bar women not only as clergy leaders but from all their decision-making bodies.

Looking at geographic regions, the Caribbean stands out with a high of 70% of churches that allow women pastors. The low point on this is Central Asia, where the Christian population is predominantly Orthodox. Among conservative Protestants, America’s Christian and Missionary Alliance authorized ordained women pastors only last year.

A significant factor here is churches that allow women clergy may not actually have many of them. On that, Zurlo summarizes that “there are barriers to women’s advancement from biblical and theological interpretation, gendered social norms and power imbalances, and cultural expectations that render women at distinct disadvantages to men.” Even in the U.S., the National Congregations Study (with Catholicism included) reports that only 14% of local congregations are led by female pastors.

Gender barriers are especially pronounced among independents, whose congregations are growing more rapidly than with the other three main Christian categories.

Zurlo writes that “the growth of Independent Christianity is going to raise important questions for women’s opportunities and for reducing gender inequality” and concludes, “It will take generations of challenging social norms and power imbalances — by both men and women — to close the gender gaps in world Christianity.”

Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.