Missionary Numbers Still Dropping?

[rockpond]

1 minute ago, rongo said:

So, are you saying that that was the expected effect and outcome from the Brethren? Wouldn't they have expected it to remain high?

Good question.  I think they probably expected it to stay high.

But maybe since they are prophets/seers they knew what would happen but still felt inspired to make the change.

I think the net effect of the change is positive. Even if missionary numbers drop to where they were before, I am still really happy to see more equity between young women and young men going on missions.  And I think the younger age has brought a new shot of enthusiasm to missionary service.  Also, on a personal note, it has been great for my daughters to watch their female cousins serve and I've enjoyed that aspect.

[clarkgoble]

49 minutes ago, rongo said:

It's interesting that they expected it to drop back down. Why assume that it would be a temporary flash-in-the-pan? Why wouldn't they assume that strong numbers of 18-19 year olds would continue? Generational birth rates?

Someone told me last year when I did some stats on all this that there was a large population in the youth that hit right at the same time as the age drop. That's partially why we had those huge numbers of missionaries - arguably more missionaries than there were effective places for them. If Holland is saying 100,000 that suggests demographic numbers they are anticipating.

[stemelbow]

21 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Good question.  I think they probably expected it to stay high.

But maybe since they are prophets/seers they knew what would happen but still felt inspired to make the change.

I think the net effect of the change is positive. Even if missionary numbers drop to where they were before, I am still really happy to see more equity between young women and young men going on missions.  And I think the younger age has brought a new shot of enthusiasm to missionary service.  Also, on a personal note, it has been great for my daughters to watch their female cousins serve and I've enjoyed that aspect.

I'd be happy if it were true that more sisters are serving missions these days.  I hope we can get confirmation on it. 

 

In 2013, a year after the age change announcement, we were told that 19,500 sisters were serving missions.  that was 24.28% of the missionaries at that time.  http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/thousands-more-mormons-choose-missionary-service

 

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/topic/missionary-program

This link tells us there are 19,543 sisters when the total was at 74,079.  Which has sisters at 26% of the total.  This looks to be end of 2015 figures.  If that's the case, then we have less young men as a percentage serving missions in 2015 then in 2012 when the name change.  So its possible the age change got us more women deciding to serve missions and has caused less young men deciding on missions. 

We can estimate we have somewhere around 17,000-19,000 sisters serving now--the number of young women seemed to remain constant for 2 years.  That may mean we have somewhere around 46,000-48,000 young men and 5-6,000 seniors.   

Are we ok to see an increase in young women at the same time we see a decrease in young men? 

 

[rockpond]

2 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I'd be happy if it were true that more sisters are serving missions these days.  I hope we can get confirmation on it. 

 

In 2013, a year after the age change announcement, we were told that 19,500 sisters were serving missions.  that was 24.28% of the missionaries at that time.  http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/thousands-more-mormons-choose-missionary-service

 

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/topic/missionary-program

This link tells us there are 19,543 sisters when the total was at 74,079.  Which has sisters at 26% of the total.  This looks to be end of 2015 figures.  If that's the case, then we have less young men as a percentage serving missions in 2015 then in 2012 when the name change.  So its possible the age change got us more women deciding to serve missions and has caused less young men deciding on missions. 

We can estimate we have somewhere around 17,000-19,000 sisters serving now--the number of young women seemed to remain constant for 2 years.  That may mean we have somewhere around 46,000-48,000 young men and 5-6,000 seniors.   

Are we ok to see an increase in young women at the same time we see a decrease in young men? 

 

Not sure what you mean by "are we ok...?"

I think that we were and would be seeing a decrease in YM serving missions either way.  So I don't see that as relevant.

[stemelbow]

11 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Not sure what you mean by "are we ok...?"

I think that we were and would be seeing a decrease in YM serving missions either way.  So I don't see that as relevant.

Interesting.  I'm curious where you got the idea that less and less young men would be serving anyway?  I don't think the trend was downward before the age change.  But I haven't seen gender specific 

[stemelbow]

50 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Someone told me last year when I did some stats on all this that there was a large population in the youth that hit right at the same time as the age drop. That's partially why we had those huge numbers of missionaries - arguably more missionaries than there were effective places for them. If Holland is saying 100,000 that suggests demographic numbers they are anticipating.

We're still on the downward slide from the peak after the age change.  I'd expect end of 2017 to be in the high 60,000 range at this rate.  So we'd have to have a major change like the age change to get anywhere near 88,000 again.  100,000 would require some real out of the box changes.   It seems like holland, or whoever told holland was not expecting to see the decline we've seen.  It was odd that two years ago they thought the number wasn't going to decrease when we all knew it would, except scott

Edited April 4, 2017 by stemelbow

[rockpond]

31 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Interesting.  I'm curious where you got the idea that less and less young men would be serving anyway?  I don't think the trend was downward before the age change.  But I haven't seen gender specific 

I don't have any access to data providing the gender breakdown of missionaries.  But, missionaries as a percentage of overall membership was fairly steady from about 1987 to 2001.  Then, it started dropping in 2002 until it hit a low point in 2010.

The peak of the surge was in 2014, declining again since then.

So, it's speculative but I am extrapolating from the data that we would have continued our percentage (not absolute) decline in missionaries had it not been for the surge.  And since the majority of missionaries was (and is) young men, I'm assuming that they are included in that trend.

Make sense?  Or is my reasoning faulty?

[stemelbow]

9 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I don't have any access to data providing the gender breakdown of missionaries.  But, missionaries as a percentage of overall membership was fairly steady from about 1987 to 2001.  Then, it started dropping in 2002 until it hit a low point in 2010.

The peak of the surge was in 2014, declining again since then.

So, it's speculative but I am extrapolating from the data that we would have continued our percentage (not absolute) decline in missionaries had it not been for the surge.  And since the majority of missionaries was (and is) young men, I'm assuming that they are included in that trend.

Make sense?  Or is my reasoning faulty?

It's certainly possible we would have seen some decreases.  An anticipation of that might have been another why for the age change.  2011 and 12 saw increases in missionaries and in the ratio of missionary's compared to the whole. 

I love having the factor of gender in their.  Now I wish they reported it that way each year. 

[rockpond]

4 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It's certainly possible we would have seen some decreases.  An anticipation of that might have been another why for the age change.  2011 and 12 saw increases in missionaries and in the ratio of missionary's compared to the whole. 

I love having the factor of gender in their.  Now I wish they reported it that way each year. 

Good point.  I was thinking that the age change announcement was in 2010, but it was 2012.  So, there were some pre-surge increases in 2011 and 2012 that brought us back to 2007 levels but not to the pre-2002 level.

[cinepro]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Interesting.  I'm curious where you got the idea that less and less young men would be serving anyway?  I don't think the trend was downward before the age change.  But I haven't seen gender specific 

It would probably be critical to look at the numbers of Elders serving as a percentage of the 18 - 21 year old men in the Church as a whole, and Sisters as a percentage of 19 - 22 year old women.   Because even an absolute increase in the numbers of missionaries might not be enough if it's a smaller percentage of the total eligible membership.

The real question for me is how much of the surge is Sister missionaries.  Just looking at my ward and extended family, there are tons of young women going on missions, including several girls I never imagined would go (but apparently a semester at BYU-I can do amazing things to a person).  But most of the young men in my family and ward are staying home (or coming home early).

[rockpond]

10 minutes ago, cinepro said:

It would probably be critical to look at the numbers of Elders serving as a percentage of the 18 - 21 year old men in the Church as a whole, and Sisters as a percentage of 19 - 22 year old women.   Because even an absolute increase in the numbers of missionaries might not be enough if it's a smaller percentage of the total eligible membership.

The real question for me is how much of the surge is Sister missionaries.  Just looking at my ward and extended family, there are tons of young women going on missions, including several girls I never imagined would go (but apparently a semester at BYU-I can do amazing things to a person).  But most of the young men in my family and ward are staying home (or coming home early).

Similar (anecdotal) situation here:  If I look at all of the grandchildren of my parents and my wife's parents there are 2 boys and 2 girls old enough to serve missions.  One girl is serving, the other is putting in her papers.  One boy has decided not to serve and the other boy is still undecided.

[stemelbow]

9 minutes ago, cinepro said:

It would probably be critical to look at the numbers of Elders serving as a percentage of the 18 - 21 year old men in the Church as a whole, and Sisters as a percentage of 19 - 22 year old women.   Because even an absolute increase in the numbers of missionaries might not be enough if it's a smaller percentage of the total eligible membership.

The real question for me is how much of the surge is Sister missionaries.  Just looking at my ward and extended family, there are tons of young women going on missions, including several girls I never imagined would go (but apparently a semester at BYU-I can do amazing things to a person).  But most of the young men in my family and ward are staying home (or coming home early).

It'd be fun to really break it as you suggest.  I'll see what I can find.

What's pretty odd is after the age change announcement, the growth rate of the Church has continued to hit historic lows each year.  The 2003 rate was really low from all years previous, then it seemed to fluctuate up and down for a bit til 2012.  Then for four straight years it's dropped.  I wonder when it'll level out again.  Is it possible the age change announcement had a bigger impact on the whole Church, unforeseen by the prophets? 

Starting in 2002:

2002	2.87%
2003	2.25%
2004	2.42%
2005	2.32%
2006	2.45%
2007	2.53%
2008	2.38%
2009	2.34%
2010	2.22%
2011	2.19%
2012	2.36%
2013	2.03%
2014	1.92%
2015	1.70%
2016	1.59%

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Similar (anecdotal) situation here:  If I look at all of the grandchildren of my parents and my wife's parents there are 2 boys and 2 girls old enough to serve missions.  One girl is serving, the other is putting in her papers.  One boy has decided not to serve and the other boy is still undecided.

I"ve seen similar patterns in the circles I run with.  More young men seem less and less inclined to go these days. 

[clarkgoble]

2 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

What's pretty odd is after the age change announcement, the growth rate of the Church has continued to hit historic lows each year.  The 2003 rate was really low from all years previous, then it seemed to fluctuate up and down for a bit til 2012.  Then for four straight years it's dropped.  I wonder when it'll level out again.  Is it possible the age change announcement had a bigger impact on the whole Church, unforeseen by the prophets? 

Some of that drop is just due to the United States becoming less religious I think. The big question for the past four years is how much of the decrease is due to changes in the missionary program (which I think dominate) versus how much is due to LGBT issues which led to larger than normal losses in membership and presumably decreases in converts. While I think the LGBT issues have an effect, I'm pretty skeptical they're the main effect due to the timing issues. The main time for LGBT backlash would be 2008 during Prop-8 and 2016 for the gay marriage is apostasy issue. The problem is that the big shift is 2013/2014.

[rockpond]

1 minute ago, clarkgoble said:

Some of that drop is just due to the United States becoming less religious I think. The big question for the past four years is how much of the decrease is due to changes in the missionary program (which I think dominate) versus how much is due to LGBT issues which led to larger than normal losses in membership and presumably decreases in converts. While I think the LGBT issues have an effect, I'm pretty skeptical they're the main effect due to the timing issues. The main time for LGBT backlash would be 2008 during Prop-8 and 2016 for the gay marriage is apostasy issue. The problem is that the big shift is 2013/2014.

Interestingly, what does correspond with the last four years of declining growth is the release of the gospel topics essays.  I wouldn't say that's the cause but I do think that the increased publicity on these tough issues for the church could be encouraging that decline.

[stemelbow]

25 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Interestingly, what does correspond with the last four years of declining growth is the release of the gospel topics essays.  I wouldn't say that's the cause but I do think that the increased publicity on these tough issues for the church could be encouraging that decline.

I wouldn't doubt if there is some contribution there.  But what really correlates, as I see it, is the missionary age change.  The gospel essays, as I recall, started coming out in late 2013, which would put it a year late as the main cause.  Since the age change announcement the Church's growth had successively reach historic lows each year. 

As to Clark's point...I really don't think it's right to date the gay marriage issue to 2008 for Church members.  The membership didn't really consider it much until a few years later when the US started really fixing the problem through the courts.  As that started happening more and more members were being awoken to the issue.  I think 2012 is a good date for that to take effect too.  I think there are contributions from both gay marriage and the essay type of info that got out there, though. 

I still ask though, what if the dropping rate is due moreso to the age change announcement (a seemingly innocuous issue) than anything else?  I doubt we'll ever really get to the bottom of it, but that would be crazy in a sense. 

[clarkgoble]

28 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

IAs to Clark's point...I really don't think it's right to date the gay marriage issue to 2008 for Church members.  The membership didn't really consider it much until a few years later when the US started really fixing the problem through the courts.  As that started happening more and more members were being awoken to the issue.  I think 2012 is a good date for that to take effect too.  I think there are contributions from both gay marriage and the essay type of info that got out there, though. ut that would be crazy in a sense. 

I'm not quite sure how you get the 2012 date. It seemed to me there was a big kerfuffle around 2008 with prop-8 and then the issue disappeared for a while until the SCOTUS cases brought it up in the media again. But that's 2015. Then after the Obergefell decision you see it really becoming an issue as there was a big social push to make acceptance of gay marriage not just law but a normative position everyone should adopt. That's when you then start getting the religious liberty vs. gay rights conflict. But while I think that has an effect, what effect it would have would likely be to offset any return to trend as the over supply of missionaries decreased.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, rockpond said:

Interestingly, what does correspond with the last four years of declining growth is the release of the gospel topics essays.  I wouldn't say that's the cause but I do think that the increased publicity on these tough issues for the church could be encouraging that decline.

I'm skeptical most people even know about the new gospel topics essays. I can't see non-members knowing about them. The only one of the tough questions that has really seen a lot of public attention is the LGBT one, but as I mentioned I just don't see the timing.

[rockpond]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm skeptical most people even know about the new gospel topics essays. I can't see non-members knowing about them. The only one of the tough questions that has really seen a lot of public attention is the LGBT one, but as I mentioned I just don't see the timing.

I agree that non-members don't know about the essays, along with many members.  But the troubling doctrinal/historical issues have received increased publicity and scrutiny over the past few years, IMO, and when people search they will often find those essays.  That's the point, right?

Those issues can dissuade non-members from joining and they can cause current members to resign or go inactive which leads to us not knowing about births (new CoR).

Certainly not the only issue at play but I'm guessing it is a contributing factor.  Certainly one that has received attention from our leaders.

[clarkgoble]

16 hours ago, rockpond said:

I agree that non-members don't know about the essays, along with many members.  But the troubling doctrinal/historical issues have received increased publicity and scrutiny over the past few years, IMO, and when people search they will often find those essays.  That's the point, right?

Have they? I confess that's what I'm skeptical of. Maybe it's just because I lived in the mission field where anti-Mormon materials were ubiquitous but if anything I notice less now than when I was a kid. Perhaps people in Utah are seeing more because they were more sheltered in various ways. But I think it unwise to extend that to the Church as a whole.

It's interesting since when I was young the Church was really seen negatively. Then we went through a relatively short period, largely under Pres. Hinkley, where we got a lot of good press and were seen positively. Now with the huge and swift societal change on LGBT issues we're seen negatively again. But even that I wonder about as I've not seen good stats on it. Mormons are still seen pretty negatively. Gallup in 2007 had a 9% very favorable, 33% somewhat favorable, 30% somewhat unfavorable and 16% very unfavorable. Pew in 2007 had a 53% favorable opinion of Mormons. (Not really the same question as gallup thus the different numbers -- and interestingly the same figure as for Islamic Americans) Unfortunately there aren't good polls using the same questions for earlier eras - particular prior to 2000. The closest is Gallup's "would you vote for a Mormon." In 1978 75% said yes, 1999 79%, 2007 72%, 2011 76%. So while there's been a bit of shifting, I don't think it's that significant.

Edited April 5, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Have they? I confess that's what I'm skeptical of. Maybe it's just because I lived in the mission field where anti-Mormon materials were ubiquitous but if anything I notice less now than when I was a kid. Perhaps people in Utah are seeing more because they were more sheltered in various ways. But I think it unwise to extend that to the Church as a whole.

It's interesting since when I was young the Church was really seen negatively. Then we went through a relatively short period, largely under Pres. Hinkley, where we got a lot of good press and were seen positively. Now with the huge and swift societal change on LGBT issues we're seen negatively again. But even that I wonder about as I've not seen good stats on it. Mormons are still seen pretty negatively. Gallup in 2007 had a 9% very favorable, 33% somewhat favorable, 30% somewhat unfavorable and 16% very unfavorable. Pew in 2007 had a 53% favorable opinion of Mormons. (Not really the same question as gallup thus the different numbers -- and interestingly the same figure as for Islamic Americans) Unfortunately there aren't good polls using the same questions for earlier eras - particular prior to 2000. The closest is Gallup's "would you vote for a Mormon." In 1978 75% said yes, 1999 79%, 2007 72%, 2011 76%. So while there's been a bit of shifting, I don't think it's that significant.

I'm not in Utah (or Idaho) either.  But, I think that the recently leaked "bubble slide" along with Ballard's CES address are enough of an indication that the doctrinal and historical issues are becoming more of a problem for the church.

[carbon dioxide]

Do we really need 100000 missionaries?  The convert rate is down, the missionary numbers are up over the last 10 years.  Perhaps we have too many missionaries in the field already in comparison to the number of people who will convert.  If there is only so many fish in the lake, adding more fishermen (fisherwomen to be PC) is not going to yield a bigger harvest.

[clarkgoble]

38 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I'm not in Utah (or Idaho) either.  But, I think that the recently leaked "bubble slide" along with Ballard's CES address are enough of an indication that the doctrinal and historical issues are becoming more of a problem for the church.

Right, but that's making a distinction between members and non-members. He's just talking about members and primarily about members in the Mormon corridor. If we're talking about converts though that's likely irrelevant. As I said I think anti-Mormon (loosely considered) materials were just rare in high Mormon density areas and few considered them. Outside of the Mormon corridor that simply wasn't true of either members or non-members.  So the absolute general state might be less of this yet relative to the state of the Mormon corridor there might be more.

Does that make sense?

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by clarkgoble

[rockpond]

2 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Right, but that's making a distinction between members and non-members. He's just talking about members and primarily about members in the Mormon corridor. If we're talking about converts though that's likely irrelevant. As I said I think anti-Mormon (loosely considered) materials were just rare in high Mormon density areas and few considered them. Outside of the Mormon corridor that simply wasn't true of either members or non-members.  So the absolute general state might be less of this yet relative to the state of the Mormon corridor there might be more.

Does that make sense?

 

It makes sense, but I disagree.  I don't see any reason to assume that the slide only refers to members in the Mormon corridor.  Internet publishing, podcasts, social media, etc make the world (and the LDS world) a much smaller place.  Google works everywhere.

But let's say the doctrinal and historical issues are primarily effecting the Mormon corridor.  A very large portion of members are being impacted.

[clarkgoble]

6 minutes ago, rockpond said:

It makes sense, but I disagree.  I don't see any reason to assume that the slide only refers to members in the Mormon corridor.  Internet publishing, podcasts, social media, etc make the world (and the LDS world) a much smaller place.  Google works everywhere.

But let's say the doctrinal and historical issues are primarily effecting the Mormon corridor.  A very large portion of members are being impacted.

Right. But not necessarily converts, who I'd argue faced more anti-Mormonism stuff in the past. I think people forget just how strongly many churches feared Mormonism and how regularly they'd do anti-Mormon stuff. That's simply less common today than as a kid. Even on my mission every investigator received anti-Mormon materials on polygamy, Adam/God, and every far out belief. 

Edited April 5, 2017 by clarkgoble