LDS Birth Bust?

I had three encounters recently in which I mentioned the largeness of my family. A pair of missionaries to my area, one from Utah, the other Florida, I bought them some lemonades and we talked. When it came up in conversation, very meh, maybe a little typical ‘gentile’ eyebrow arch as a tell for the visceral, “that’s odd, these are odd people”.

Hasidic Jewish youth outreach guy and Muslim woman at the exit door at Costco: “Wonderful! Good job! God bless you!

Wife and I currently have. Seven. Need to improve physical and financial shape to add any more. But do not rule it out. We are pst 40.

Two other families added to their larger treasure , also similar age demographic.

My younger sister (same age as wife) decided to have one more,
Because she realized she and her husband really like kids.

These are rays of light against a backdrop that is, as you say, catastrophic. I share them because (1) I think there is a different between older and younger families (and, especially, women) of child-bearing years that may be instructive and (2) perhaps understanding what works may lead to solutions for what doesn’t work.

I think at least part of what works is preparation, familiarity with the effort associated with maintaining a larger family, and appreciation for the blessings associated with having many children.

Oh, that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart.

I have four siblings, and have been immeasurably blessed.

@ SPDI,
I have six siblings and 11 nieces and nephews; same. And my youngest brother and his wife agree that they want 8 children, if they can get them. Our family has its issues, but we certainly buck the trend on this one.

There are many factors that go into the decline of birthrate. Before the advent of the contraceptive pill women had babies into their forties, even fifties, until fertility ended. Doctors didn’t consider women too old to have babies either, pregnancy was normal. Now, women are told that they are too old after age 35, and they must be watched and tested, etc. “They” (media, government, academia, etc.) tell us that we can’t afford to have more than two, it’s just too expensive. Environmentalists claim that more people will just ruin the planet. Satan’s lies are everywhere and too many LDS people listen and obey, rather than exercising faith in the promise that when God commands, He prepares a way to enable us to obey.
I grew up in a family of six (five natural, one adopted), my husband grew up in a Catholic family of seven. My mother was #12 of 15; my father had only one sister, although Grandma wanted a full dozen. People are led to believe that if you don’t use contraceptives you’ll have lots and lots of children. Some women do, others don’t. While how many can be a private discussion between husband and wife, I sure wish more couples were willing to welcome more to their families and follow the example of earlier generations by letting the Lord plan their families, rather than listening to modern lies and limiting the number of children.

Families are not getting smaller in Utah, actually (whether they are in the church as a whole or not is a harder question because of a lack of data). This narrative stems from a misunderstanding of the statistics involved. I’ll walk through why below, but the gist is that family size hasn’t changed, but there are less women at peak childbearing ages and there are more women who have no children at all (in part due to declining marriage rates), resulting in less children being born.

The numbers in the posted map are looking at births per 1000 residents. This does not control for changes in the age structure. The population in the country as a whole is aging. This means that even if the typical woman had the exact same number of children in 2022 as in 2007, the rate would still decline, because a smaller percentage of the population is made up of women at peak childbearing ages. This is especially true in Utah because the state had its own baby boom in the late 1970s, peaking in 1981, before crashing through the rest of the decade. Families really did get smaller in the 80s. As a result, almost twice as many babies were born in Utah in 1981 compared to a decade before, but then the numbers crashed and the 1981 total would not be surpassed until 1997. The result of this is that there was a surge in the percentage of women at peak childbearing age in the mid-2000s that then crashed in the 2010s as those huge cohorts born in the late-70s/early 80s hit their peak childbearing age (which was 27 at the time) and then were replaced by the smaller cohorts born in the late 80s/early 90s. This is also the main reason why the number of missionaries serving declined in the early 2000s, and why church growth has struggled over the last decade. It’s not people leaving, it’s that there were literally less Latter-day Saints born in 1990 than in 1980, resulting in less who could then give birth in the 2010s.

A way to get around this problem is to control for age. The most common statistic used for this is the Total Fertility Rate (TFR). This takes the fertility rate at each age and sums them up. This is the statistic this is used when talking about the number of children per woman (for example, the “replacement rate” of 2.1). Using this measure, Utah has seen a larger decline than the country as a whole over the last 15 years. However, if you look at counties with the largest percentage of Latter-day Saints, like Utah County, the decline is only slightly larger than the nation as a whole.

So, the decline in the number of children of record is coming from both a decline in fertility as well as changes in the population structure that mean there are less women at peak childbearing age in the first place.

You might assume from this that families are getting smaller. However, the Census Bureau runs a massive survey each year that allows you to drill down to small geographic levels because the sample size is so large. According to this data, in Utah County the average number of children living with married women who have at least one child (so, families) has not declined at all, even at younger ages, over the last 15 years. In other words, family size is stable and not declining in the county that is the best proxy for church members.

You might then ask, “well if family size isn’t declining, how is fertility declining?” It’s because childlessness is rising. There has been a huge increase in the percentage of women in their early 20s who have no children. This is reflected both in the survey data I mention above from the Census Bureau, as well as looking at first-child birth rates. We are on track to see a much higher percentage of women end up having no children, even as the women that do have children are having the same number as before. This is partly driven by declines in marriage and partly by an increase in childlessness among young married couples. However, once they do start having kids, they’re having the same number, just at a delayed age. Of course, you can only delay for so long before you start getting too old, but apparently we aren’t there yet.