Tuesday, October 22, 2013

LDS Population - US and Worldwide

I was looking through the history of LDS church membership, and also at 2007's Pew's research on religious affiliation in the US and found some interesting things.  Starting with the Pew numbers.

US

1.8% of US adults claim were raised LDS; 1.7% of US adults currently identify as LDS, and yet the LDS US population is keeping just ahead of general US population growth. (Worldwide, the Church is growing at more than twice the pace of world population growth.)

Compared to other US religions
53.% raised Protestant; 51.3% now identify
---20.9% raised Baptist; 17.2% now identify
---8.3% raised Methodist; 6.2% now identify
---5.5% raised Lutheran; 4.6% now identify
---3.9% raised Pentacostal; 4.4% now identify
---3.4% raised Presbyterian; 2.7% now identify
31.4% raised Catholic; 23.9% now identify
1.9% raised Jewish; 1.7% now identify
1.5% raised nondenominational Christian; 4.5% now identify
0.6% raised Jehovah's Witness; 0.7% now identify
0.3% raised Muslim; 0.4% now identify
7.3% raised *unaffiliated; 16.1% now identify

* = atheist/agnostic/"nothing in particular"

Of the US people who convert to the LDS Church:
50% are Protestant
27% are Catholic
19% are unaffiliated
4% are from other faiths

As far as breakdown of raised/converted for religion population breakdown:

74% of US LDS adults were raised as such; 26% converted

Catholic - 89% raised as; 11% converted
Jewish - 85% raised as; 15% converted
Muslim - 60% raised as; 40% converted
Protestant - 54% raised as; 29% switched from different Pr. denomination; 16% converted

Childhood Members

56.5% of the total US population stay with the faith (or lack thereof) they were raised with.
30.1% switch to a different religion/group
13.4% convert to no religion

LDS - 70% stay / 15% switch faiths / 14% to no

Catholic - 68% / 18% / 14%
Jewish - 76% / 9% / 14%
Buddhist - 50% / 22% / 28%
Jehovah's Witness - 37% / 30% / 33%

Protestant - 52% stay in their denom. / 28% switch denom. / 7% switch faiths / 13% to no
---Baptist - 60% / 23% / 6% / 11%
---Methodist - 47% / 32% / 8% / 12%
---Lutheran - 59% / 19% / 9% / 13%
---Pentacostal - 47% / 35% / 6% / 12%
---Presbyterian - 40% / 36% / 9% / 14%

In general, 45% of men and 42% of women changed religions.  The age group that changed most was 40-59. Age 70+ had the highest percentage that did not change religions, followed by 18-29.

There are approximately 6.32 million baptized Mormons in the US; about 5.32 million who consider themselves LDS.

WORLD-WIDE

There are 15 million members.
These break downs are from 2011, when it was around 14.4 million.  The fastest growth is in Central and South America.

USA - 6.32
Mexico - 1.32
Rest of North/Central America - .87

Brazil - 1.21
Chile - .58
Peru - .53
Argentina - .41
Rest of South America - .92

The Philippines - .68
The South Pacific - .50

This leaves about 1 million members scattered around the rest of the world.  For example, the continent of Asia, minus the Philippines, still has over 4 billion people in it, but only about 390,000 are LDS.  China and India account for 2.55 billion people and only have about 22,000 LDS members within their populations. Another 737 million people live in Europe, with just under 500,000 being LDS.

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