Money, Sex and Religion: The case of the Church of Scotland

This empirical study addresses whether the gender of a minister has any effect on remuneration in the Church of Scotland in 2004. The data set merges three cross-sectional sources, namely denominational data, church census information and local geographic (postcode) characteristics. We find that male ministers are more likely to be matched to affluent churches permitted to pay a voluntary stipend premium all else equal. Moreover, conditional on eligibility, there is evidence that male clergy are more likely to receive this bonus. The data are unable to discriminate between demand and supply side explanations of these findings.