We Used to Have Social Statistics
I’m poking around old LDS statistical reports, conference by conference.
There is a period during the 90s when we don’t report new children of record at all.
Conversely, I found there was a period when we actually had a section called Social Statistics, where we broke out the birthrate, the marriage rate, and the death rate. Fascinating.
Here’s an example from 1981:
Social Statistics
|
Birthrate per thousand |
28.1 |
|
Number of persons married per thousand |
12.2 |
|
Death rate per thousand |
3.9 |
Not to be depressing or anything, but that birthrate is is about 6 times higher than our current one. Dooooooom, he dirged. Dooooom! Partly because the of the baby boomer bulge, to be fair. I wouldn’t be surprised if the marriage rate was also higher than now, though who knows.
Those were good statistics to keep.
John Mansfield
April 15, 2024
Number of endowments for the living and the dead are meaningful numbers I wish the church still reported. I wonder how many years before the annual counts of baptisms cease. I also wonder when new temples will no longer be individually named in General Conference. Many decades ago every new meetinghouse was named in General Conference, and also every new ward. In the future we will just assume every city with a stake also has a temple or two.