LDS Birthrates – 2023 Update
The Church’s latest statistical report has 17,255,394 members as of the end of the year. With 93,594 new children of record.
Taken at its face value, that is a rate of 5.42 births per 1,000 people. That is lower than any existing country, lower even than vanishing countries like South Korea and Japan which have achieved all time low birth rates. The good news such as it is: we are up slightly from last year’s 5.24 births per 1,000 people.
However, you probably shouldn’t take it at face value. What these statistics probably actually mean is that the actual number of members who have any relationship at all with the church is around 3-6 million people and that our birth rates have been dropping pretty badly. If you assume even fewer actual members the birth rates look better and vice versa.
For comparison, in 1986 we had the same number of children of record with a membership of 6 million (link).
Here’s a more detailed analysis of what our membership and new children of record numbers could mean.
Just How Bad Is Our Birthrate
Sute
April 9, 2024
Are we even fit for exaltation and eternal lives?
Zen
April 9, 2024
For the children of record, a better comparison would be adults weekly attendance. Total membership probably includes those who have long forgotten it, and certainly never brought their families, if any, in at all.
John Mansfield
April 9, 2024
So, either our fertility is abysmal, or our member retention is absysmal, or they are both pretty low.
G.
April 9, 2024
both pretty low. My guess is our tfr is around 2.4-2.6. We seem to track gentile fertility with a +1.
@Zen, like the drunk guy looking for his keys under the streetlight, I have to use the data the Church provides.
Zen
April 9, 2024
G – in good tradition of physicists and data scientists, then.
I consulted the oracle at OpenAI, and it gave two references for estimates of active membership as 15% or 30%.