Others have estimated how many leave the organization. I didn't quite follow their reasoning, so I took a stab at making an estimate. I am not sure, if my reasoning is the same as has been posted or not, but here goes. In the past five years there as been an increase of about 34 thousand JWs in the U.S. (I don't have exact figures because I took the numbers off of a graph at Freeminds). Based on the death rate in the U.S., they would have had about 44 thousand die for a net loss of 10 thousand. During that 5 year period, about 158 thousand were baptized. Now, if no one left, they should have had a gain of 104 thousand (baptized minus deaths). This means that 70 thousand left during that time (104 thousand potential increase minus 34 thousand actual increase), or 7% of the total number of witnesses. What do think? Is my rationale correct?
JWs: how many leave?
by larc 8 Replies latest jw friends
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freedom96
I was going to say that even a net increase of about 34000 witnesses in the US alone is quite large, when figureing out all the crap they put ones through. HAS to be mostly kids in the WTS getting baptized, not new ones.
Anyways, back to your figures, they seem reasonable to me.
Personally, I want to see big drops in the numbers.
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Joker10
You are forgetting the irregular or inactive ones are among those figures, not that they actually 'left'. Also to note, is that is that it's the kids who grow up are the ones who mostly leave.
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Guest 77
larc, we didn't go to the same school by any chance? Humor time!
Guest 77
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AlanF
Another possible way to figure this out is to note that memorial attendance is something like 15 million, whereas there are about 6 million active publishers. But we know that a lot of the people who quit the JWs don't attend memorial, so a reasonable estimate of that number might be 3 to 6 million. If we take the lower number, that gives us about 12 million people who quit. Try to average that over the past 50 years or so (naturally a careful estimate would have to account for the average death rate of people) and you get an average of at least a quarter million people a year leaving. That's a little over a 4% attrition rate, not at all out of line with my own experiences. Larc, you can certainly fill this in with better figures.
AlanF
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larc
Joker10, I was using the average publishers. Therefore, the inactive or irregular would not have much affect on the numbers. I would think that the irregular publishers would have more of an impact on peak publshers. AlanF, I did not use memorial figures because they contain a mixture of different kinds of attendees, e.g., book studies, believers who are inactive and attend to apease relatives, nonbelievers who attend for the same reaon. It is interesting to note that the ratio of memorial attenders to average publishers is 2.5 to 1, and years ago it was only 1.1 to one. In the "good old days" only book studies who had progressed were invited to the memorial. It appears, then, that in the last 40 years, the number of "marginal" Witnesses has markedly increased. Alan, also, I was only calculating the numbers for the U.S., so you are right, world wide, the numbers would be much higher. My estimate world wide would be about 420,000 over the last five years, which is still lower than your numbers. I will have to think about your analysis a bit more. Edited to add: Alan, I don't think you can average the numbers over 50 years for two reasons. 1. Years ago, the numbers were much smaller, and 2. The growth rates were higher, indicating that "turnover" was lower back then. I think the numbers for the last 5 or so years are more useful to anlyze, because their persent numbers represent their highest period of "turnover". I would also maintain that the "hard numbers" of publishers, baptized, and death rates are better analyzed than the unkown mix of memorial attenders. Besides, the diverse and unknown mix of memorial attenders, it would be necessary to know, not only how many had been active Witnesses, but also, their average period of inactivity. At any rate, your estimate is 250,000 per year and mine is at 84,000 per year.
Edited by - larc on 3 February 2003 16:42:21
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OUTLAW
Hey larc,I was going to ask this question,and here you have posted a thread on it.My question to you is :How many dubs still alive,do you figure there are on the planet that are no longer active,D/A,DF or just have nothing more to do with the WBTS?..Thanks ...OUTLAW
Edited by - OUTLAW on 3 February 2003 17:10:0
Edited by - OUTLAW on 3 February 2003 17:10:38
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larc
OULAW, this is do-able but would be very tedious. You would have to put set up four columns: number of publishers, number of baptisms, death rates (which have changed over time), and % of people still alive today for the year people left. You would have to have data back for the last 80 years to capture a close estimate of the totals. Just now, I did an interesting calculation. I recorded the number baptised, number of publishers and death rates for 1970-1976. I took the number of publishers in 1970 and added the number of baptised to get an estimate of how many there should be in 1971. I did this for successive years through 1976. These numbers indicate that 2% left in 1971 and 3% in 1972. However, in 1973 there were 2% more than expected. This was true of 1974 as well. This indicates that of the 5% that left earlier, 4% returned. In 1975, 1% left. In 1976, the year after failed prophecy, a whopping 14% left. Well, I did these calculations for the interesting years of the '70's, but I ain't gonna do it for an 80 year period.
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OUTLAW
Hey larc,after reading your last post,can`t say I blame you,LOL! That looks like alot,and I mean alot of work...OUTLAW