Posts by shepherdless

11

Reject WT Thinking - November 2017 WT article commented (p. 20)

by Master_Bob in

i really liked this kind of articles when back in borg, because they address the issues i was most concerned about.

or at least i thought that they address, because they don't.

i marked all the deceptive techniques and logical manipulations they use as a mental exercise and would like to share with you.

shepherdless

To quote from the cartoon series your avatar is from; "Good job, Bob!"

I particularly like the reference to increasing cybercrime.

12

JW Definition of "Apostate"

by Saename in

so recently, after having a conversation with a jehovah's witness, i started wondering about how jws define the term "apostate.

" officially, every elder would tell you that an apostate is one who leaves the jehovah's witness faith.

but did anyone else notice that this is not how they use the word colloquially—that they're sort of dishonest about it?.

shepherdless

If you look up "apostasy" on Wikipedia, and scroll down, you will see a separate subsection for Jehovah's Witnesses.

In dictionaries, the word is usually defined along the lines of a renunciation of one's reliigion (or principles or cause etc), but most Christians, if they use it at all, tend to restrict the term to those who abandon faith in God altogether, not those who change religious denomination, or those who dispute individual teachings or leaders within a denomination.

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

shepherdless

Hi konceptual, my response and anecdote about the old couple was in response to Ruby's question. I didn't see your comment before posting mine. I had a perception that people move less in the UK but I have never spent a long period there, so I don't actually know the extent of it.

Anyway, this is all a side-track.

Ruby, I doubt that JWs are in less debt, compared to what they earn, but I don't know. I also doubt that financial strain is a primary explanation for the "return to Jehovahs", but that is a topic for another day.

Edit: I wrote the above before seeing the last two posts.

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

shepherdless

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

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.

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

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.

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

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.

34

cleveland ohio RC notes

by nowwhat? in

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

youngest age 10. saw no brothers with beards.

better than average .50% growth.

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.

24

Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

by shepherdless in

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.

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

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.

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:

2016 census data shows that JWs earn significantly less than other Australians. This is true, even when allowing for age and sex factors.
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:

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.
I only deal with nominal incomes; no adjustment for CPI (inflation).
I am an amateur. I don't analyse stats in my "day job".