JW Decline: additional data from Aust 2016 census (page 2)

steve2

Given that JWs - in common with many other Christian-based religions - consist of more female members than male and that overall growth of the JWs in Australia has stagnated with indications as well of decline, it is a matter of time before the ageing composition of the religion becomes even more pronounced (in this case, kingdom halls with an over-representation of older women).

shepherdless

SBF is correct. There is an issue with the boy girl ratio. I relied on the Aust govt computer to calculate percentages, and there are 3 ways to do it.

The numbers in to 0 to 4 age group (2016) for JW boys is 1797, and 1640 for JW girls. Still a 5% discrepancy, and beyond statistical randomness, but it all makes more sense now.

I am actually impressed SBF picked up the point.

I have some urgent work I need to do, but I will try to get back to this in more detail a little later, with a more comprehensive response.

shepherdless

I have corrected the data for the error pointed out by SBF. It has 2 effects. Firstly, the population trees lean over to the female side more (ie it actually makes it look worse for Watchtower). Secondly, I have to revise my section 5.

Charts

Here are the population trees for Watchtower, in the order 2006, 2011, and 2016:

By the way, when considering the bulge in the 5 to 9 bracket, and the 10 to 14 bracket, remember this is a parent filling in a census form on behalf of a kid.

The other population trees would change shape slightly as well, but to a much lesser extent. I suspect that not many people are that interested in them, so I will leave that for the moment.

The blue chart in Section 3 remains the same.

Section 5

I can't edit my original post, but if I could, my section 5 would read as follows:

5. The "Return to Jehovah" effect is significant
I have previously described this effect. As shown above, and as you are probably aware, a lot of people leave the Borg between the ages of 15 and 25. It seems to me from the data that a lot of those who leave are POMI, and come back after they start to have kids. This shows up in the data in 2 ways.

shepherdless

Just comments on other people's posts.

Data-dog: yes the charts confirm what many have suspected. But it is nice to have that confirmation. Even though this is just for Australia, the trend is probably equally applicable to Western Europe and North America and a few other places. On a previous thread, I mentioned that trends revealed by the Pew Report (2014) for USA seem to mirror the Aust data.

Steve2: That is quite a decrease. It took a year for the census data to come out in Aust. I will try to give you a hand analyzing the NZ data when released, if you want.

SBF: Mode in 2006 was a 45 to 49 yo woman. Mode in 2011 was a 50 to 54 yo woman. Mode in 2016 was a 55 to 59 yo woman. I didn't notice that before you mentioned it.

Yes I don't mention any emigration figure. There is no easy way to extract that. I have worked out a way of getting a fairly accurate estimate, but it is time consuming. I haven't done it as yet, as I don't think it will change the numbers much, and I don't know if many people will understand it, anyway.

You might be right about the SDA's not being a useful comparison. I will compare the Mormons, when I get the chance. I think there will be too few Baptists, and the Methodists merged with the Presbyterians and another one (can't remember at the moment) decades ago in Aust to form the Uniting Church, which is shrinking dramatically.

I originally thought about excluding females under 15 from the section 3 chart. I decided to do it the way I did, because it makes the point better (inevitable future JW decline), and is less open to debate.

LongHairGal: Yes, it will be interesting to see how many in the 5 to 9, and 10 to 14 cohorts remain. As I said earlier, their parents filled in the census form, not them.

smiddy3

With all this bad publicity going around worldwide we can only hope the decline speeds up .

Thanks for the info shepherdless interesting stats.

shepherdless

In one of the above posts, I tried to write out a new Section 5. Frustratingly, for some reason, what I wrote got truncated. I feel like I am spamming my own post. Here is what I intended:

5. The "Return to Jehovah" effect is significant
I have previously described this effect. As shown above, and as you are probably aware, a lot of people leave the Borg between the ages of 15 and 25. It seems to me from the data that a lot of those who leave are POMI, and come back after they start to have kids. This shows up in the data in 2 ways.
Firstly, the census data shows that the number of kids in the 5 to 9 age bracket increases significantly compared to the 0 to 4 age bracket, of 5 years earlier. You can see this in the JW population trees above. This can partially be explained (but not completely) by immigration.
Secondly, there is a discrepancy between boys and girls in the 0 to 4 age bracket. Eg, in 2016, 1797 boys and 1640 girls fell into that bracket. The difference between the two is too large to be random. I think it is that POMI mothers are more likely to "return to jehovah" if they have a young boy to bring into the congregation. However, I would be happy to take any other suggestions as to what is happening here.
If my explanation of the discrepancy is correct, then it follows that the "Return to Jehovahs" make up 10% or more, of the parents of these young kids.

stuckinarut2

Brilliant thread!

Thank you for all the effort that has gone into compiling this!

It is really great information!

Listener

Shepherdless - SBF: Mode in 2006 was a 45 to 49 yo woman. Mode in 2011 was a 50 to 54 yo woman. Mode in 2016 was a 55 to 59 yo woman.

That looks like it is moving with the same bunch of females. For instance, a female aged 47 in 2006 is 52 in 2011 and 57 in 2016 and falling within those same age groups you mentioned.

shepherdless

Yes, that is right, Listener. I find the median (not the mode) to be a far better indicator of what is happening, but they both indicate an aging of the religion.

Cheers stuckinarut and smiddy. It is not quite as much work as it probably looks (I am getting good at it) and I would do it just for my own interest, even if others weren’t interested.

dozy

Thanks for the research and the graphs. Very interesting analysis.

A related factor , and what is even worse for the Society , is the lack of new younger elders & MS - AKA "brothers reaching out".

The Society are trying to deal with all these issues by closing down and merging congregations , lowering the bar to being appointed , cancelling the book study and other measures , but eventually all of this is a demographic nightmare for the Society that is slowly but surely developing.

JW Decline: additional data from Aust 2016 census

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