shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

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  shepherdless
• 
  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

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  shepherdless

  what if there are only low paying jobs/or very few high paying jobs in an area. wouldn't that be a cause of an income level for that area?

  If by "area", you mean "suburb", then I would answer, no. If by "area" you mean a region so large that it impractical to commute or drive to another region for work, then I would answer yes, but there not many such regions in Australia, not many people live in them, and the young capable ones that do, invariably move to the cities.

  Australia is a bit different to UK. Each State has one major city where most of the high paying jobs are (the exception being the high paying remote mining jobs). Australia is highly urbanised, and most of the population live in those few cities. Hence most of the population live near enough to the high paying jobs to get one, if they have the skill or opportunity. Also, Australians are (in my observation) much more willing to move to where the jobs are.

  My observation of UK is entirely different. For example, I remember visiting an elderly couple in U.K. who had been living in the same rural cottage as tenants for 50 years (!). I told them that as I was driving there I nearly took a wrong turn towards a major town, which was 50 miles away. Neither of them had ever been to that town, and I had an impression that the town might as well have been on the other side of the planet. I can see that with that mindset, the area in which you live would control your income, rather than the other way around.
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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  shepherdless

  Ruby: in Australia do jws live in less affluent areas and if they do would this influence your figures?

  I haven't checked, but I am sure JWs typically live in less affluent areas. However, I did check geographical data in the past, and JWs are spread fairly evenly across urban and rural Australia, but not uniformly. The distribution amongst the States suggests there are more JWs in States that are cheaper to live in. Qld has the highest concentration of JWs, and Vic has the lowest for a State (little ACT has an even lower rate, less than half the national average). Overall, I think residential address would be a result of income, not a cause of an income level, so I think it is a minor factor, if a factor at all.

  also in jw families is it usually that if one parent works full-time the other does not work or works part-time and would this also influence your figures? in the UK more jws are working full time while most mothers work part-time.

  I focused specifically on males of working age, to try to eliminate these factors.
  

  * * *

  If are after very specific data, and can describe it, very precisely, I will see what I can do. You would probably be better off going to the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, and going to the "Tablebuilder" page, and seeing what info is available. You can get a reasonable amount of info logging in as a "guest". I use a "Tablebuilder Basic" account, myself.
  

  By the way, I would expect the trends in Aust and U.K. to be fairly similar, given the overall cultural similarities.
  
  
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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  shepherdless

  Thanks Simon. I agree with your likely explanations.

  are you serious: It would be interesting to see what the income disparity is like in the USA.

  Yes, it would be very interesting to know. The Pew research from 2014 has only a little data, and is based on a survey, but it showed (from memory) that JWs in USA also earnt less, were getting older, and (at face value) the gap between JWs and others was widening. When I get a bit of free time, I will set out the numbers. I think Darkspilver did a relevant thread on this as well, about 6 to 12 months ago.
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  34

  cleveland ohio RC notes

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  peak attendance 7100. baptised 38 mixed bag of old and young.

  youngest age 10. saw no brothers with beards.

  better than average .50% growth.

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  shepherdless

  Thanks nowwhat.

  0.5% baptisms is a little higher than typical in recent times. Do you happen to know the attendance for last year? The reason I ask is that I have read a suggestion or two of lower attendances at some RC's in USA, this year.
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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  shepherdless

  Yes, Steve, when I came to write up a summary, I wrote 2 figures in the wrong spot.

  Figures should read:

  • 2016 Aust median income: A$662
  • 2011 Aust median income: A$577
  • 2016 JW median income: $A420
  • 2011 JW median income: $A411

  I should add that I did find a chart in a publication that indicated nominal wages increased by 2.8% p.a. over that 5 year period. 1.028^5 = 1.148, ie a 14.8% increase, which is very close to the 14.7% I calculated.

  Hopefully, I didn't make any more mistakes.
• 
  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  shepherdless

  Time for some more stats, for your interest and comments...

  It has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for JWs are lower than virtually any other religion, in Australia. Rather than repeat that exercise here, I set out some detail about the gap between JWs and ordinary Australians.
  

  1. JWs typically earn much less

  Here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing JW incomes against other Australians. Note that the blue bars are longer than the gold bars at the bottom, and shorter at the top.
  

  
  

  From the data behind that chart, I calculated median incomes as follows:

  • 2016 Aust median income: A$577
  • 2016 JW median income: A$420

  In other words, the typical JW income is 3/4 of the income of a typical Australian.
  

  2. Comparing 2011 Census

  Doing the same exercise for the 2011 census gives:
  

  • 2011 Aust median income: A$662
  • 2011 JW median income: A$411

  These figures would indicate that over the 5 year period:

  • Aust median income increased 14.7%
  • JW median income increased only 2.2% (but see below)

  3. How is the disparity occurring?

  The above numbers give the appearance that JWs are not only well behind other Australians, but that the gap is widening dramatically. However, first impressions can be deceiving. To do a real comparison, you have to strip out the following effects:
  

  • JWs are now typically significantly older than the typical Australian;
  • As I explained on an earlier thread, that age difference widened significantly between the 2011 census and the 2016 census; and
  • For JWs over the age of 20, women dramatically outnumber men (relevant because women typically have lower incomes).

  One may also wonder, given Aust's high immigration rates, whether immigration is a factor. I can answer that it does not appear to be a significant factor. I will leave the explanation for a later date.
  

  4 Allowing for the age and sex factors

  To remove the above age and sex factors, I downloaded the income data again, but for males only, in separate 5 year cohorts. I then calculated individual median incomes for each cohort. After that, I repeated the exercise, but first filtered the data for those who reported themselves as JWs.
  

  It was time consuming and mind-numbing. don't try it yourself; unless you have a lot of Panadol on hand.
  

  I then used the resultant data to produce the following chart:
  

  
  

  The graph speaks for itself. Young male JWs actually earn slightly more. I suspect that is because they skip tertiary education and get a head start in the workforce. Not long after that, they fall behind their "worldly" colleagues. It could be because they are burnt out, or lack workplace social skills, but I suspect it is more because they lack the qualifications to achieve in the workforce, beyond the menial jobs.

  Whatever the reason, it is clear that male JW's typically earn significantly less compared to other Australians. Combining all males between ages 20 and 69, I calculated JW males typically earnt 17% less, which, over 49 years (20 to 69) amounts to A$390,000.
  

  One possibility that occurred to me was that the chart could be an indication that perhaps younger male JW's were getting less dragged down by the religion. To test this, I repeated the whole exercise for the 2011 census results. The 2011 data shows the same story, as set out in the combined chart below.
  

  
  

  One good thing I noticed comparing 2011 data and 2016 data, is that the number of male JW's aged between 20 and 69 decreased from 26,482 to 25,055. That is a 5.4% decrease, compared to a 3.6% decrease for JWs overall, in the same period.
  

  Also, I calculated that back in 2011, male JW's ages between 20 and 69 typically earnt 23% less compared to other Australians. So it seems that 2016 was an improvement. Perhaps that is an indication that they are becoming more "worldly".

  Conclusion:

  1. 2016 census data shows that JWs earn significantly less than other Australians. This is true, even when allowing for age and sex factors.
     
  2. At face value, comparing 2011 to 2016 census data suggests that the income discrepancy is getting worse. When removing distorting factors (ie that JWs are ageing and predominantly female), the income discrepancy is not increasing, and is perhaps decreasing.
     

  Notes:

  1. I do my own calculations of "median income". I have used the same method each time, so if I am out slighly in one, it should be out by the same amount in all.
  2. I only deal with nominal incomes; no adjustment for CPI (inflation).
  3. I am an amateur. I don't analyse stats in my "day job".

  
  
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  17

  The Witneses reckon that they are the only ones going door-to-door!

  by Bungi Bill in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just had a visit from two guys who are engaged in a door-to-door campaign in the area, preaching "the gospel", and offering, to quote "the best news you are ever going to hear".

  this was at 3:30 pm local time, an hour at by which all jws would have long called it a day.

  while these two didn't identify themselves with any particular church group, it was quite obvious that they were neither jws or lds.

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  shepherdless

  While these two didn't identify themselves with any particular church group...

  That seems to be a tactic used by the Seventh Day Adventists. You ask them what their church or denomination is, and you get silly responses like "there is only one church" etc. They have tracts etc that don't identify their denomination. It seems to be a marketing trick to outsiders to pretend initially to be some sort of pan-denominational Christian organisation. Just their version of "theocratic warfare", I guess.
  
  
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  46

  10 years on.....

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a window cleaner, i was at the time unemployed, homeless.

  i had no education to be proud of (high school one a two b's rest c's) i was a jehovahs witness.

  i had been a pioneer.

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  shepherdless

  Brilliant!
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  13

  Aust Census: JW's and Divorce Rates

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  this post is actually in answer to a question i got from jwfacts.

  i think the issue was also raised on a recent thread.. first, some data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses:.

  (a) 1,751,733 (7.5% of population) reported being in a de-facto couple on census night, but .

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  shepherdless

  Thanks for the compliment, sbf.

  I am not as well read as you presume. I just don't get much time to read books; I don't even watch tv these days.

  I haven't seen the book, Sects and Stats, but from the table of contents it looks like the author focuses on "longitudinal data" (ie same data measured at different times) which I think is the most useful approach to understanding trends etc.

  i sped read the Cragun and Lawson article. Some excellent observations there, using the figures Mormons, SDA and Watchtower publish.

  I read some extracts of David Voas, some time ago. He made some excellent points about why religion generally is in decline, that I have to agree with, and backs it up with data. I agree decline is generational. From memory, he is the one who uses the Atlantic fishermen analogy, to describe JW's. I don't agree with that analogy, as I think the ordinary publishers are the "catch" not the fishermen.

  Like you, I have also read somewhere that decline itself is not accepted by some "experts". That is bizarre. My explanation for such people is that those that are intellectually proud tend to be more vulnerable to "confirmation bias" than the average person. We were living in a time when one of the greatest events of human history is happening around us; the unshackling of society from the chains of religious superstition. There are very credible stats from USA, South Korea and Aust in recent times (some of the more religious of the advanced countries) each showing religion in decline at the rate of about 1% per year.