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Do not fill this in! ==Demographics== {{main|Demographics of the LDS Church}} {{see also|Less-active Mormon|Ex-Mormon}} {| class="wikitable floatright" ! style="width:200px;"|Pew 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study<ref name="pew">{{cite web|url=http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/mormon/|title=Mormons|date=2014|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|access-date=December 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116071557/http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious-tradition/mormon/|archive-date=November 16, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> !width="25"|LDS (U.S.) !width="25"|U.S. Avg. |- |Married |66% |49% |- |Divorced or separated |7% |11% |- |Have children under 18 |41% |31% |- |Attendance at religious services (weekly or more) |77% |40% |} The church reports a worldwide membership of 17 million.<ref name="statistics 2022">{{Cite news |last=Noyce |first=David |date=April 1, 2023 |title=Global LDS membership reaches a new high. See how it got a post-COVID boost. |newspaper=[[The Salt Lake Tribune]]|url=https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/04/01/global-lds-membership-reaches-new/ |access-date=June 28, 2023}}</ref><ref name="Current Statistics">{{cite web |title=Facts and Statistics |url=https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics |website=Mormon Newsroom |publisher= [[LDS Church]]|access-date=June 3, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190718205918/https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics |archive-date=July 18, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> The church's definition of "membership" includes all persons who were ever baptized, or whose parents were members while the person was under the age of eight (called "members of record"),<ref name=Handbook2006>{{cite book |title=Church Handbook of Instructions |year=2006 |location=Salt Lake City |publisher= [[LDS Church]] |title-link=Church Handbook of Instructions }}</ref>{{rp|145β146}} who have neither been excommunicated nor asked to have their names removed from church records.<ref name=Handbook2006/>{{rp|116, 148β149}} As of December 2011, approximately 8.3 million members reside outside the United States.{{efn|Subtracting U.S. membership of 6,144,582 (December 31, 2011) from total worldwide membership (December 31, 2011) of 14,441,346, results in 8,296,764 (rounded to 8.3 million) members outside the United States of America.}}<ref name="Current Statistics"/> {| class="wikitable floatright" ! style="width:200px;"|Pew Research Center 2014 Survey: Ethnicity<ref name=Racial>{{cite web|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/racial-and-ethnic-composition/by/religious-denomination/among/religious-tradition/mormon/ |title= Racial and ethnic composition among Mormons | publisher=[[Pew Research Center]] |date= May 30, 2014}}</ref> !width="25"|LDS (U.S.) !width="25"|U.S. (2020)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html |title=Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census |publisher=[[US Census Bureau]] |access-date=December 2, 2021}}</ref> |- |White |85% |62% |- |[[Black Mormons|Black]] |1% |12% |- |Latino |8% |12% |- |Asian |1% |6% |- |Other/Multiracial |5% |21% |} According to its statistics, the church is the fourth largest religious body in the United States.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mainline Protestant churches no longer dominate NCC Yearbook's list of top 25 U.S. religious bodies |url=https://www.ncccusa.org/news/050330yearbook.html |publisher=[[National Council of Churches of Christ]] |access-date=May 9, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190314143924/http://www.ncccusa.org/news/050330yearbook.html |archive-date=March 14, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= Largest U.S. Churches, 2005 |url= http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001481.html |website= Information Please Database |publisher= [[Pearson Education]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141208223209/http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001481.html |archive-date= December 8, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> Although the church does not publish attendance figures, researchers estimate that attendance at weekly LDS worship services globally is around 4 million.<ref name="Stack 2005">{{Cite news |url= http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2890645 |title= Keeping members a challenge for LDS church |newspaper= [[The Salt Lake Tribune]] |date= July 26, 2005 |last= Fletcher Stack |first= Peggy |author-link= Peggy Fletcher Stack |access-date= December 3, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120204215609/http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2890645 |archive-date= February 4, 2012 |url-status= live }}</ref> Members living in the U.S. and Canada constitute 46 percent of membership, Latin America 38 percent, and members in the rest of the world 16 percent.<ref name="Current Statistics"/> The 2012 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, found that approximately 2 percent of the U.S. adult population self-identified as Mormon.<ref name=pew/> Membership is concentrated geographically in the Intermountain West, in a specific region sometimes known as the ''[[Mormon corridor]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |editor1-last=Silk |editor1-first=Mark |editor2-last=Shipp| editor2-first=Jan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9VwnAAAAQBAJ |title=Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition |last2=Shipps |first2=Jan |date=May 26, 2004 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=978-0-7591-1559-0 |location=Hartford, Connecticut |last1=Flake |first1=Kathleen | chapter=The Mormon Corridor: Utah and Idaho|chapter-url=https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Rel-by-Region-Mormon-Corridor.pdf |via=[[University of Virginia]] |page=91}}</ref> Church members and some others from the United States colonized this region in the mid-to-late 1800s, dispossessing several indigenous tribes in the process.<ref name=ZionsMount/>{{rp|28, 249β250, 365}}<ref name=":0" /> [[File:LDS Church Membership 1830-2021.png|350px|thumb|left|The church saw prodigious numerical growth in the latter half of the 20th century, but the growth has since leveled off.]] The church experienced rapid numerical growth in the 20th century, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name=Contemporary>{{cite book |last=Bushman |first=Claudia L. |author-link=Claudia Lauper Bushman |year=2006 |title=Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-day Saints in Modern America |location=Westport, Connecticut |publisher=[[Praeger Publishers]] |isbn=0-275-98933-X |oclc=61178156 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tGF7LdsbatoC |access-date=June 28, 2023 }}</ref>{{rp|1}} In the 21st century, however, church membership growth has slowed.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Riess |first=Jana |author-link=Jana Riess |date=April 7, 2022 |title=Is Mormonism still growing? Five facts about Latter-day Saint growth and decline |work=[[Religion News Service]] |url=https://religionnews.com/2022/04/07/is-mormonism-still-growing-five-facts-about-latter-day-saint-growth-and-decline/ |access-date=June 28, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stewart |first=David |year=2023 |title=The End of Growth? Fading Prospects for Latter-day Saint Expansion |url=https://jmssa.org/wp-content/uploads/JMSSA-VOLUME01-STEWART.pdf |journal=Journal of the Mormon Social Science Association |publisher=Mormon Social Science Association |volume=1|issue=1|page=21|doi=10.54587/JMSSA.0102 |s2cid=251330999 }}</ref> In 2022, eight of the top ten nations with the highest LDS membership growth rate were in Africa,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Noyce |first=David |date=May 18, 2023 |title=Latest from Mormon Land |newspaper=[[The Salt Lake Tribune]] |url=https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/05/18/latest-mormon-land-what-if-church/ |access-date=June 28, 2023}}</ref> and Latino people are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups with millions of LDS adherents in [[Latin America]]n countries.<ref>{{Cite news |last=BojΓ³rquez |first=Kim |date=August 25, 2022 |title=The rise of Latino Latter-day Saints |work=[[Axios.com|Axios]]|url=https://www.axios.com/2022/08/25/latino-mormons-religion-lds-utah}}</ref> In the United States, church members tend to be more highly educated than the general population.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Heaton |first=Tim B. |date=2023 |title=Education, Religious Participation, and Conservatism Among Mormons in the United States| journal= Journal of the Mormon Social Science Association |publisher=Mormon Social Science Association|volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=1β20 |doi=10.54587/JMSSA.0101 |s2cid=251205199 |url=https://jmssa.org/wp-content/uploads/JMSSA-VOLUME01-HEATON.pdf }}</ref> The racial and ethnic composition of membership in the United States is one of the least diverse in the country. Church membership is predominantly white;<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/27/the-most-and-least-racially-diverse-u-s-religious-groups/|title=The most and least racially diverse U.S. religious groups| publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|date=July 27, 2015}}</ref> [[Black Mormons|the membership of blacks]] is significantly lower than the general U.S. population.<ref name=Racial/> The LDS Church does not release official statistics on church activity, but it is likely that only approximately 40 percent of its recorded membership in the United States and 30 percent worldwide regularly attend weekly Sunday worship services.<ref>{{cite news|last=Fletcher Stack|first=Peggy |author-link=Peggy Fletcher Stack |date=January 17, 2014|title=New Almanac Offers Look at the World of Mormon Membership|newspaper=[[The Salt Lake Tribune]]|url=https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=57369318&itype=CMSID|url-status=live|access-date=January 2, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429045818/https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=57369318&itype=CMSID|archive-date=April 29, 2021}}</ref>{{efn|Reporting on a presentation given by the church's chief information officer, a ''Deseret News'' article indicated that one of Maxfield's statistics was that "about 36% [of church members] attend weekly sacrament meetings". The article was retracted with following disclaimer: "some of the statistics originally reported in this article have been removed because they have not been verified by the LDS Church. The information was removed at the request of the speaker."<ref>{{cite web|date=October 14β17, 2014|title=Mormon News|url=http://signaturebooks.com/2014/10/mormon-news-october-13-17/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150420215900/http://signaturebooks.com/2014/10/mormon-news-october-13-17/|archive-date=April 20, 2015|access-date=April 20, 2015|publisher=[[Signature Books]]}}</ref>}} A 2016 survey found a majority (54%) of millennials raised in the church had disaffiliated.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Judgment, trust, LGBT issues driving millennials from Mormon church |publisher=[[United Press International]] |url=https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/05/22/Judgment-trust-LGBT-issues-driving-millennials-from-Mormon-church/9431558542861/ |access-date=June 28, 2023}}</ref> Activity rates vary with age, and disengagement occurs most frequently between age 16 and 25. Young single adults are more likely to become inactive than their married counterparts,<ref>{{Cite news|last=Riess|first=Jana |author-link=Jana Riess |date=October 5, 2016|title=Worldwide, Only 25% of Young Single Mormons Are Active in the LDS Church|work=[[Religion News Service]]|url=https://religionnews.com/2016/10/05/leaked-worldwide-only-25-of-young-single-mormons-are-active-in-the-lds-church/|url-status=live|access-date=January 2, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210530060613/https://religionnews.com/2016/10/05/leaked-worldwide-only-25-of-young-single-mormons-are-active-in-the-lds-church/|archive-date=May 30, 2021}}</ref> and women tend to be more active than men.<ref name=VeryShort/>{{rp|55}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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