Mormons Growing in America?

[clarkgoble]

There's a new PRRI poll out regarding American religion. I did a post over at T&S you might find interesting on it.

The biggest surprise, although it was downplayed in the text of the study, was the significantly larger number of Mormons it found. It's always dangerous comparing two different surveys so it's not clear what to read into this. However they made numerous comparisons to Pew studies throughout so it's worth noting they got 1.9% of Americans being Mormon. That's much higher than Pew's last study which had us at 1.6%. It's so much bigger that it's hard not to thing this is significant.

Note how this goes against the expectation especially of Mormon critics regarding our growth.

[Avatar4321]

That would be more in tune with what the apostles were saying about us never being stronger.

 

[Marginal Gains]

24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

There's a new PRRI poll out regarding American religion. I did a post over at T&S you might find interesting on it.

The biggest surprise, although it was downplayed in the text of the study, was the significantly larger number of Mormons it found. It's always dangerous comparing two different surveys so it's not clear what to read into this. However they made numerous comparisons to Pew studies throughout so it's worth noting they got 1.9% of Americans being Mormon. That's much higher than Pew's last study which had us at 1.6%. It's so much bigger that it's hard not to thing this is significant.

Note how this goes against the expectation especially of Mormon critics regarding our growth.

From the study:

Although Mormons are a predominantly white Christian religious tradition, there is little evidence to suggest that they are experiencing similar declines.13 Currently, 1.9% of the public identifies as Mormon, a number identical to findings from a 2011 study of Mormons in the U.S.14

Mormons are also much younger than other white Christian religious traditions. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of Mormons are under the age of 30. Fewer than half (41%) are age 50 or older.

I’m not sure having the same proportion as was seen in 2011 counts as being “so much bigger” or “significant”. The conclusion would be that Mormons as a proportion of American society has remained at 1.9%. The positive is that Mormons aren’t seeing a similar decline as others. 

It’s also worth noting the study doesn’t, as far as I can tell, differentiate between the Mormon sects, but rather lumps them all as “Mormon”, nor does it take the temperature of activity levels. This is a survey of how people self identify.

 

The other thing worth noting is that 1.9% of the American population - 323 million as at 2016 (the date for the study), would be a little over 6 million.

Whereas the Church claims nearly 9.2 million members in America as at the end of 2016.

How do we explain the discrepancy that the Church is posting 50% more membership (3 million more members) than the study revealed?

Edited September 6, 2017 by Marginal Gains

[stemelbow]

4 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

There's a new PRRI poll out regarding American religion. I did a post over at T&S you might find interesting on it.

The biggest surprise, although it was downplayed in the text of the study, was the significantly larger number of Mormons it found. It's always dangerous comparing two different surveys so it's not clear what to read into this. However they made numerous comparisons to Pew studies throughout so it's worth noting they got 1.9% of Americans being Mormon. That's much higher than Pew's last study which had us at 1.6%. It's so much bigger that it's hard not to thing this is significant.

Note how this goes against the expectation especially of Mormon critics regarding our growth.

I found this:

Quote

The margin of error for total sample is +/- 0.4 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. The margin of error for issue subsample is +/- 0.6 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. The design effect for both total sample and the issue subsample is 1.4. In addition to sampling error, surveys may also be subject to error or bias due to question wording, context, and order effects.

I think the difference between the two fall within an acceptable range.  I don't know that the difference found is significant. 

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I’m not sure having the same proportion as was seen in 2011 counts as being “so much bigger” or “significant”. The conclusion would be that Mormons as a proportion of American society has remained at 1.9%. The positive is that Mormons aren’t seeing a similar decline as others. 

The figure they are comparing it to was the earlier 1.6%. Why they said "unchanged" when that's a reasonable change isn't clear. If you go through their footnotes this becomes quite clear. I go through this in the T&S post.

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I found this:

I think the difference between the two fall within an acceptable range.  I don't know that the difference found is significant. 

That's right on the boundary. So it's not unambiguous but is a much bigger figure than Pew who has a fairly consistent figure. As I said in the T&S post it might be an artifact but it is a surprisingly bigger number.

Edited September 6, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

The other thing worth noting is that 1.9% of the American population - 323 million as at 2016 (the date for the study), would be a little over 6 million.

Whereas the Church claims nearly 9.2 million members in America as at the end of 2016.

How do we explain the discrepancy that the Church is posting 50% more membership (3 million more members) than the study revealed?

I've gone through this before if you're interested in the details. The Church is considering anyone baptized while self-identification studies only look at those 18 and older. You can make a few estimates to figure out what percent of those still on the records self-identify. Quite a few don't of course but it's much smaller than one might imagine.

There are incentives to remove people from the records who don't consider themselves Mormon. However there are also some reasons why this might not be done - not knowing where people are being a common one. Still I get a rough figure of only about 20% erroneously being on the rolls which is surprisingly small from my perspective.

[Gray]

6 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I've gone through this before if you're interested in the details. The Church is considering anyone baptized while self-identification studies only look at those 18 and older. You can make a few estimates to figure out what percent of those still on the records self-identify. Quite a few don't of course but it's much smaller than one might imagine.

There are incentives to remove people from the records who don't consider themselves Mormon. However there are also some reasons why this might not be done - not knowing where people are being a common one. Still I get a rough figure of only about 20% erroneously being on the rolls which is surprisingly small from my perspective.

The church also considers unbaptized children as members of record until age 9, so should also account for some of the gap. They obviously wouldn't be taking telephone surveys.

[clarkgoble]

4 minutes ago, Gray said:

The church also considers unbaptized children as members of record until age 9, so should also account for some of the gap. They obviously wouldn't be taking telephone surveys.

Do the stated figures include children under 8? I had thought they didn't. If they do then that means that 20% figure is much smaller implying more success getting non-members off the records than I've have thought possible. (Even 20% is pretty high when you stop and think about it given the number of converts who fall away the first year)

[stemelbow]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

 

That's right on the boundary. So it's not unambiguous but is a much bigger figure than Pew who has a fairly consistent figure. As I said it might be an artifact but it is a surprisingly bigger number.

The reported number carries a range for both the 1.6% and the 1.9% that carries significant overlap.  essentially there is no difference or change between the two because of that. 

Also they note there is an error that should be assumed due to "question wording, context, and order effects".  It doesnt' appear we can conclude growth. 

[Gray]

11 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Do the stated figures include children under 8? I had thought they didn't. If they do then that means that 20% figure is much smaller implying more success getting non-members off the records than I've have thought possible. (Even 20% is pretty high when you stop and think about it given the number of converts who fall away the first year)

My understanding is yes. There is a special category called member of record. If you're age 0-9 and unbaptized, but the church has you on file, you're counted among the members. If you reach age 9 without being baptized, you're no longer counted.

[Marginal Gains]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I've gone through this before if you're interested in the details. The Church is considering anyone baptized while self-identification studies only look at those 18 and older. You can make a few estimates to figure out what percent of those still on the records self-identify. Quite a few don't of course but it's much smaller than one might imagine.

There are incentives to remove people from the records who don't consider themselves Mormon. However there are also some reasons why this might not be done - not knowing where people are being a common one. Still I get a rough figure of only about 20% erroneously being on the rolls which is surprisingly small from my perspective.

Got it.

When I correct my population number to exclude under 18’s the numbers align better. Thanks for that.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Marginal Gains

[cacheman]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

The figure they are comparing it to was the earlier 1.6%. Why they said "unchanged" when that's a reasonable change isn't clear. If you go through their footnotes this becomes quite clear. I go through this in the T&S post.

If I'm not mistaken, they were comparing their numbers to a 2011 Pew survey.  That's where the 1.9% figure comes from unless I'm misreading their footnotes. The 2014 Pew survey has the 1.6% number.  It appears that both fall within the margins of error. 

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, cacheman said:

If I'm not mistaken, they were comparing their numbers to a 2011 Pew survey.  That's where the 1.9% figure comes from unless I'm misreading their footnotes. The 2014 Pew survey has the 1.6% number.  It appears that both fall within the margins of error. 

The 2014 Pew has 1.6% and 2007 has 1.7%. I think I may have accidentally reversed those when writing the comments here. (Don't have time to reread the comments to be sure -- later tonight I hope)

 

Someone at T&S noted that Pew did break out LDS and non-LDS Mormon. The former was 1.6% and the later was <0.3% so that may be where the 1.9% is coming from.

Edited September 6, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Okrahomer]

7 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Do the stated figures include children under 8? I had thought they didn't. If they do then that means that 20% figure is much smaller implying more success getting non-members off the records than I've have thought possible. (Even 20% is pretty high when you stop and think about it given the number of converts who fall away the first year)

From LDS.org:

An individual's membership record is stored at CHQ, but a copy is held by the ward where the person resides. For statistical and reporting purposes, the following persons are members of record and should have a membership record:

1. Those who have been baptized and confirmed.
2. Those under age nine who have been blessed but not baptized.
3. Those who are not accountable because of intellectual disabilities, regardless of age.
4. Unblessed children under age eight when:
   • Two member parents request you create a record.
   • One member parent requests you create a record and the nonmember parent gives permission.

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

I refuse to believe any of this. The good people at Reddit have clearly demonstrated that they and everyone they know is leaving the Church in droves. Obviously PRRI have been paid off by Church leaders.

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

There's a new PRRI poll out regarding American religion. I did a post over at T&S you might find interesting on it.

The biggest surprise, although it was downplayed in the text of the study, was the significantly larger number of Mormons it found. It's always dangerous comparing two different surveys so it's not clear what to read into this. However they made numerous comparisons to Pew studies throughout so it's worth noting they got 1.9% of Americans being Mormon. That's much higher than Pew's last study which had us at 1.6%. It's so much bigger that it's hard not to thing this is significant.

Note how this goes against the expectation especially of Mormon critics regarding our growth.

Would be nice to know how much of that supposed increase is based on the high Mormon birthrate, and the low birthrate among other Americans generally.  That automatically changes the percentages.  That and BIC baptisms and convert baptisms, set over against the numbers actually leaving -- by resigning and by dying.  Here locally we regularly have convert baptisms.  People are still listening to the missionaries and accepting baptism.  In some missions in foreign countries, despite difficulties in some regions, new stakes are being formed.  Membership is growing.

[Okrahomer]

One also needs to keep in mind that LDS homes in the US have more children in them than other homes.  (See PEW's 2009 "Portrait of Mormons in the US".)

Also, according to data from Soul Searching: &nbsp;The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, 2.5% of US teens self-identify as LDS (see Table 1 on page 31 here.)

 

[Hamba Tuhan]

20 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

People are still listening to the missionaries and accepting baptism.

Only the feeble-minded ones that lack internet access. Seriously, do you not read any apostate websites???

Actually, we have a fantastic investigator preparing for baptism next weekend. He's 24 and just finished a stint in the army. (Our army is a lot more professional and selective than the American one...) He now works in security at the facility where we train our Olympic and other elite athletes. I took him caving a couple of weekends ago, and he was great to have along in the car. It was an hour to the caves and an hour back, and he talked the whole time about cool things he's read. I literally could not bring up a subject that he hadn't read something about. He'll make a great asset to both our ward and the Church.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Hamba Tuhan

[sunstoned]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Only the feeble-minded ones that lack internet access. Seriously, do you not read any apostate websites???

Actually, we have a fantastic investigator preparing for baptism next weekend. He's 24 and just finished a stint in the army. (Our army is a lot more professional and selective than the American one...) He now works in security at the facility where we train our Olympic and other elite athletes. I took him caving a couple of weekends ago, and he was great to have along in the car. It was an hour to the caves and an hour back, and he talked the whole time about cool things he's read. I literally could not bring up a subject that he hadn't read something about. He'll make a great asset to both our ward and the Church.

More professional? More Selective?  Maybe,  but I bet our uniforms are nicer

[Okrahomer]

12 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

The other thing worth noting is that 1.9% of the American population - 323 million as at 2016 (the date for the study), would be a little over 6 million.

Whereas the Church claims nearly 9.2 million members in America as at the end of 2016.

How do we explain the discrepancy that the Church is posting 50% more membership (3 million more members) than the study revealed?

Please check your data.

9.2 million is for ALL of North America--not for the US alone.

The US number is 6.6 million.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

More professional? More Selective?  Maybe,  but I bet our uniforms are nicer

You're probably right. Ours are pretty ordinary.

But getting into one of our uniforms is genuinely competitive. Our former bishop (undergraduate degree in psychology, master's degree in law, black belt in Taekwondo) was knocked back twice before finally being accepted.

When I was teaching in America, the recruiters that visited our campus seemed to be interested in little more than warm bodies that could take basic orders ... though that may have been a false impression.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Hamba Tuhan

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, cacheman said:

If I'm not mistaken, they were comparing their numbers to a 2011 Pew survey.  That's where the 1.9% figure comes from unless I'm misreading their footnotes. The 2014 Pew survey has the 1.6% number.  It appears that both fall within the margins of error. 

It appears that Pew has a weird category for Mormons. The total field is 1.6% for all Mormons. They then break it down by LDS and non-LDS with 1.6% and < 0.3%. They likely added the two not realizing that added together the total was still 1.6%.  However the 2011 poll (2012 study) is what they reference in their footnotes not the more recent 2014 figure. No matter how you cut it though it wasn't well written. (Not that I can say much given my own errors - but you'd hope someone writing that would do better than someone doing a quick post with no proofreading)

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The 2014 Pew has 1.6% and 2007 has 1.7%. I think I may have accidentally reversed those when writing the comments here. (Don't have time to reread the comments to be sure -- later tonight I hope)

Someone at T&S noted that Pew did break out LDS and non-LDS Mormon. The former was 1.6% and the later was <0.3% so that may be where the 1.9% is coming from.

So they are including FLDS polygamists and the Community of Christ (RLDS) and other splinter groups in the total?

Edited September 7, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

One also needs to keep in mind that LDS homes in the US have more children in them than other homes.  (See PEW's 2009 "Portrait of Mormons in the US".)

Also, according to data from Soul Searching: &nbsp;The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, 2.5% of US teens self-identify as LDS (see Table 1 on page 31 here.)

 

Note that's really dated though - 2003. It's a reasonably large survery - 3,290 people - but it's a phone survey. What's really interesting is that they did a followup a few years later. I've not found detailed breakdown on Mormons from wave 3 or wave 4 though. Soul Searching found that by wave 2 (18) only .3% had fallen away.

[clarkgoble]

9 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So they are including FLDS polyamists and the Community of Christ (RLDS) and other splinter groups in the total?

Yup - but the numbers aren't big enough to change the total.