The physical and financial limits on having children are much more severe in other developed nations. In Japan, some apartments are basically just two rooms that get converted into bedrooms in the evening. Having a car is expensive because of the cost of parking. Despite these limitations, the Japanese LDS members are having more kids than the average 1 or 2 of most modern Japanese families. The social barriers to growing up Mormon are also intense. I imagine this is also true for developed Europe.

My daughter has recounted to me that in some of her wards in Colorado Springs, when she had 4 kids, there was a lot of social pressure from working moms on other moms to limit the size of families. I think the working moms felt constrained in how many kids they themselves could raise, and, exhibiting the normal human tendency toward self-justification, used the prevailing cultural language of criticizing large families against their LDS sisters. The counsel about not criticizing other members for their decisions on family size need to be extended the other way as well.

Perhaps having larger families, along with paying tithes and other church offerings, and giving volunteer time to the Church instead of making more money with a second job, or having Mom get a job, places Mormons in an effective lower socio-economic tier, where we don’t have as much disposable income to get involved in activities that distract us from the basic activities of family and church. If you don’t have a lot of funds for jetting off to Cozumel or someplace like that for vacation every year, you will show up at church more often. Having more kids makes us prioritize. In my personal experience, the tendency to go inactive was more pronounced in higher income areas like Marin County, California, where the number of members and congregations has been shrinking for 20 years, than in communities with lower average income levels.

I, too, have calculated the “exits” the same way. While there are occasionally “negative” numbers, I think that is more due to reconciliation than anything else. I think the reason it hasn’t happened as much recently is that most units are electronically-based as opposed to paper-based, with nothing much more “snarky” than that.

The more interesting thing about the “exit” numbers to me is the rate per 1000. I have the numbers on a different computer but it would be interesting to plot the “exits” per 1000 against the “converts” per 1000 to see trends. The “converts” per 1000 is down 40% over the past 15 years from the above data to around 20/1000. If my memory is correct, the “exits” are around 8/1000. If the 2 lines were to ever meet, it would mean that the net growth would be neutral except for children born.

This is actually the case in several areas. In a country like Norway, there are around as many members there today as there were 20-25 years ago.

Of all of the charts, the one that has the most long-term implications for me is the Converts Per 1000 Members. In a very short time (15 years: 1993-2008), it dropped over 40%, from 35 to 20. I don’t know if this is an aberration or a trend, but it does suggest that Church growth is certainly flattening out.

Concerningly, there is a certain percentage of people who leave the Church each year or die. I don’t have exact numbers for these, but interpolating as best as I can, it seems to be on the order of 6-10/1000 per year. If the converts/1000 members drops another 40% over the next 15 years (ie. from 20->12), it is going to be closing in on the number of people who leave the Church. If those 2 numbers ever match, then we will only have growth through children born in the Church.

Any thoughts on why this is happening or if it’s going to flatten out?

I do think the church needs to step up it’s marketing for the value of going on a mission.