Insight From Statistical Report

[Res Ipsa]

Also from the LDS wiki

It is important to record the life events for all individuals within the unit boundaries.

Even children born to inactives?

....Births

New children born into the unit should be recorded on Church records.

Children that are blessed in fast and testimony meeting, have the blessing recorded by the clerk and the certificate printed for the family.

It is not necessary to have a child blessing to create a new child of record.

I don’t know. Maybe I am being overly suspicious, but that leaves open a lot of doors to —righteously, with the very best of intentions, done with an eye to eternity, rather than bothering with the short-sighted rules of earth—-potentially manipulate records.

I read through some of the discussions on that board. It does sound a little loosey goosey.

ETA: I was looking at an older site that appears to have been replaced by the site you are looking at.

[toon]

Yes. I got your point clearly the first time. I still get it.

And I did distinguish between the percentages. In fact, that’s precisely what I said. I never defined it as exclusively male or female. Perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote. I understood your point and was trying to provide a perhaps more charitable reading of what he said.

Why so combative?

We will have to agree to disagree. As for asking someone why they are combative, why don't you ask Analytics?

Your thinking is cloudy today. Are you on your period or something?

Whenever I hear “agree to disagree,” I think of that scene from Anchorman about the origins of San Diago.

While I wanted to give a charitable reading to his comments on missionary statistics, I won’t give one for his latest statement. Inappropriate to say the least.

[Analytics]

Thinking about male full-time missionaries is interesting, too. My first reaction is that it is interesting in the same way that the total number of temple-recommending adults would be interesting, or total annual tithing revenue would be interesting; interesting, but the Church never released that statistic.

On the other hand, males have more-or-less been under consistent pressure to go on missions. It's still hard to compare across generations because the church is now more likely to decline calling people with health issues, and it now calls males to go as soon as they graduate from high school, rather than making them wait until they turn 19. But still, the constant pressure that "all young men are called to serve" is still pretty-much there. If a male is dedicated to the Church, barring health issues he will probably go on a mission.

In contrast, you can be a super-dedicated female and choose not to go. While more female missionaries choosing to go on missions is an interesting sociological phenomenon, it isn't necessarily an indication that more females of missionary age are super-dedicated to the Church.

Some guesses I came up with are that in 1989, 95% of missionaries were young men (4% females, 1% couples). By 2019, 75% were young men (with 20% being female and 5% being couples). Those are just guesses.

If that is correct, then while the total number of missionaries grew at a 19% per-decade rate over those thirty years, the young men serving only grew at a 10% per-decade rate over those thirty years.

(I use a per-decade rate because that is what Rodney Stark always used in his famous calculations that the church would grow between 30% to 50% per decade indefinitely, reaching 180,000,000 members by 2080, and becoming a major world religion).

[IHAQ]

I’m having trouble understanding your point. The fact that annual new children of record is declining over time is certainly a significant trend. But I don’t understand why you find the combination of that trend with increasing total membership to be something to be investigated.

The only surprise is that this difficulty doesn't occur more often!

What I'm trying to say is this:
Annual new children of record shouldn't be declining if the number of Mormon adults is increasing.
Given that Mormons are known for having large families, this diverging trend between kids and adults is particularly glaring. It should be at least parallel, if not a growing trend weighted towards the number of new children - on the basis Mormons marry younger than the norm and have more kids than the norm - so more kids over a longer period of marriage. The number of new children should outweigh the membership growth.

I suspect this is a massive worry for the Church as baby production has been a much more effective and cheaper way of growing the membership.

[Res Ipsa]

I’m having trouble understanding your point. The fact that annual new children of record is declining over time is certainly a significant trend. But I don’t understand why you find the combination of that trend with increasing total membership to be something to be investigated.

The only surprise is that this difficulty doesn't occur more often!

What I'm trying to say is this:
Annual new children of record shouldn't be declining if the number of Mormon adults is increasing.
Given that Mormons are known for having large families, this diverging trend between kids and adults is particularly glaring. It should be at least parallel, if not a growing trend weighted towards the number of new children - on the basis Mormons marry younger than the norm and have more kids than the norm - so more kids over a longer period of marriage. The number of new children should outweigh the membership growth.

I suspect this is a massive worry for the Church as baby production has been a much more effective and cheaper way of growing the membership.

Got it. Thanks for explaining. I agree with you that, in the long run, that trend can't continue. But it can continue for several more years. If everything else stayed equal (which it won't), New Children of Record could decline by 5K every year while total membership increased every year for more than the next 15 years. The rate of growth would decrease, but the absolute increase in members from year to year would continue until the inflows from New Children of Record and Convert Baptisms equaled the outflow of Deaths, Excommunications, Resignations, and Timed out 110 year olds.

If I were in the leadership (shudder) I'd be very worried.

[IHAQ]

Got it. Thanks for explaining. I agree with you that, in the long run, that trend can't continue. But it can continue for several more years. If everything else stayed equal (which it won't), New Children of Record could decline by 5K every year while total membership increased every year for more than the next 15 years. The rate of growth would decrease, but the absolute increase in members from year to year would continue until the inflows from New Children of Record and Convert Baptisms equaled the outflow of Deaths, Excommunications, Resignations, and Timed out 110 year olds.

If I were in the leadership (shudder) I'd be very worried.

I think they've been very worried for the last 20 years. The missionary age change, all the talks on marriage and the responsibility to bring children into the world etc. They've seen this trend in starker clarity and can see how it ends. If the deaths and resignations and lapsed memberships aren't being replaced by births (and they aren't) then that is an ever decreasing circle. At 65,000 for 2020 - that's 1 new child for every 250 members per annum, and shrinking.

[Analytics]

Another good example is Chile. About 20 years ago, there was going to be a national census where, among other things, they were going to ask every single person in Chile their religion. The Church argued to the government that they had 520,202 members in Chile and hence should be one of the main options listed in the census that Chileans could choose from.

Chile agreed, and the Church issued a press release boasting about being included as an option in the census.

It turns out that only 103,735 Chileans indicated that they are members of the Church. The Church did not issue a press release publicizing that 80% of its members in Chile self-identify as something other than Mormon.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

[Res Ipsa]

Got it. Thanks for explaining. I agree with you that, in the long run, that trend can't continue. But it can continue for several more years. If everything else stayed equal (which it won't), New Children of Record could decline by 5K every year while total membership increased every year for more than the next 15 years. The rate of growth would decrease, but the absolute increase in members from year to year would continue until the inflows from New Children of Record and Convert Baptisms equaled the outflow of Deaths, Excommunications, Resignations, and Timed out 110 year olds.

If I were in the leadership (shudder) I'd be very worried.

I think they've been very worried for the last 20 years. The missionary age change, all the talks on marriage and the responsibility to bring children into the world etc. They've seen this trend in starker clarity and can see how it ends. If the deaths and resignations and lapsed memberships aren't being replaced by births (and they aren't) then that is an ever decreasing circle. At 65,000 for 2020 - that's 1 new child for every 250 members per annum, and shrinking.

That would make sense. I always disregarded the future growth projection based on past growth rates. It's easy for a relatively small organization to sustain high rates of growth. But as the size increases, there just aren't enough new babies or converts to sustain those rates. What I hadn't realized, until you guys started focussing on the trend in New Children of Record, was how close the church was coming to not growing at all. They've had better access to the right numbers for some time, so it would make sense that they saw problematic trends long before us outsiders.

[Res Ipsa]

Another good example is Chile. About 20 years ago, there was going to be a national census where, among other things, they were going to ask every single person in Chile their religion. The Church argued to the government that they had 520,202 members in Chile and hence should be one of the main options listed in the census that Chileans could choose from.

Chile agreed, and the Church issued a press release boasting about being included as an option in the census.

It turns out that only 103,735 Chileans indicated that they are members of the Church. The Church did not issue a press release publicizing that 80% of its members in Chile self-identify as something other than Mormon.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N02_65.pdf

So, when I was missionary age in the late 1970s, South America was the hot place to go for baptisms. So we saw the tons of people get baptized, with the obvious effect on membership growth, but what we didn't see was the very low rate of retention. So, the membership rolls have a huge bubble of inactive folks who may stay on the rolls until at least 2050. That's a huge deferred loss that will eventually will come due. That's why I asked earlier if anyone knows when the 110 year policy for lost souls was implemented. The bubble for Chile alone is at least 400,000 for an organization that grew by less than a quarter of that number last year.

I'm not sure it matters from a financial standpoint, as the organization can likely coast on its investment earnings for the foreseeable future. And expenses will shrink as chapels are sold off. But the PR hit is enormous, as the "fastest growing church in America" experiences net loss of members on the rolls in the coming years.

[moinmoin]

Annual new children of record shouldn't be declining if the number of Mormon adults is increasing.
Given that Mormons are known for having large families, this diverging trend between kids and adults is particularly glaring. It should be at least parallel, if not a growing trend weighted towards the number of new children - on the basis Mormons marry younger than the norm and have more kids than the norm - so more kids over a longer period of marriage. The number of new children should outweigh the membership growth.

I suspect this is a massive worry for the Church as baby production has been a much more effective and cheaper way of growing the membership.

Young LDS adults are marrying much later, and having far fewer children --- and this has been happening for a while. I don't find it surprising at all to see children of record decline.