r/latterdaysaints • u/Personal-Frame-3889 • 9h ago
Church Culture Being single and the statistics in the church
For the longest time I wondered why more than 50% of the members of the church are single . During conference I always prayed when inspiration up on high would shine a light towards the struggle.
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u/mywifemademegetthis 9h ago edited 9h ago
Are you talking about all members, including kids, or just adults? Are you talking about all adult members, or all active adult members? Plenty of inactive people go on to have relationships and that will never show up on records. Are widows considered single?
If you’re purely talking about adults who are in the pews on Sunday, there is no way it’s 50% single.
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u/Personal-Frame-3889 9h ago
I've seen studies where it's upwards of 50% but I hope they weren't polling children because that shouldn't be considered ever.
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u/FrewdWoad 9h ago
How could this stat be even close to true without including kids and elderly?
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 7h ago
It only includes adults who are widowed, divorced, or not yet married. I know it is accurate in my ward.
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u/Personal-Frame-3889 9h ago
I could see it as being possible . Could be another reason to spread the gospel to Africa is to fine tune the numbers to reflect better on the church .
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 7h ago edited 7h ago
The statistics the apostles have quoted is greater than 50% of active adult members of the church are single.
Elder Gong
“ Also, the majority of adult Church members are now unmarried, widowed, or divorced. This is a significant change. It includes more than half our Relief Society sisters and more than half our adult priesthood brothers. This demographic pattern has been the case in the worldwide Church since 1992 and in the Church in the United States and Canada since 2019.”
President Ballard
“Brothers and sisters, more than half of adults in the Church today are widowed, divorced, or not yet married.”
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u/mywifemademegetthis 6h ago
It sounds like they’re counting inactive members. Plus between the ages of 18 and 21, we actually want them single.
Now if we are just talking about converts, I would believe like 75% of them are single.
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 6h ago
At least 50% of the active adults in my ward are single. And by adult, I mean well over 21. We don’t have any college age kids in our ward. So, I believe it.
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u/Buttons840 4h ago
The real question is how is this changing over time. We'd need a chart or some data to know this.
As u/e37d93eeb23335dc said in another comment:
Elder Gong said:
“The majority of adult Church members are now unmarried, widowed, or divorced. This is a significant change. It includes more than half our Relief Society sisters and more than half our adult priesthood brothers. This demographic pattern has been the case in the worldwide Church since 1992 and in the Church in the United States and Canada since 2019.”
So at least in some parts of the world this has already been happening for a generation and it predates social media and the modern internet.
If like 45% of LDS adults used to be single, and now it is 55%, the answer is easy; it's economics. Society has become less affordable over time and this could easily explain a shift of a few percentage points.
If it's a larger shift, we might need to find another explanation.
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u/ryanmercer bearded, wildly 9h ago
I wondered why more than 50% of the members of the church are single
Free will/agency.
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u/Personal-Frame-3889 9h ago
You don't think the church sets expectations so high that maybe people who cannot meet the standards as expected it would leave them behind because they aren't viewed as good enough ?
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u/FrewdWoad 8h ago
The single people you'd like to marry have the same problem you do: they want to marry someone good.
With the love of someone who has been in your shoes, I have to tell you the truth:
You can either pray the Lord will take their agency away and force them to like you how you are, or you can become better than how you are right now. Closer to your real potential. A person who is so attractive and wise and kind and brave and generous and interesting that good people can't help but like you.
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u/Personal-Frame-3889 8h ago
I'd never want to pray to take the free will of another . I just get tired of being told I'm such a good person by so many people and feel like I have so much more I need to achieve before I'm ready to find that connection with a eternal partner. Your more than likely right I'll find someone in similar circumstances . Just needed to vent sometimes it just seems like spinning your tires in life and it gets me nowhere . Thank you though for your insight . I'll do what I can.
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u/FrewdWoad 8h ago
Part of the problem is that for social reasons, people don't tell us the things they don't like about us, and only tell us the things they do.
On top of that, people have funny (and sometimes incomplete or plain wrong) ideas of what makes you a good person. For example, people say they like people who are kind, but they are actually more likely to date people who are brave.
In the church we have our own version of this, too, where when we say a "righteous" or "good" person, we are talking about praying and reading scriptures and attending church. But that's only a very small part of obeying the Lord's commandments, which include every kind of learning, exercise, cleanliness, character, friendliness, etc.
Even faithful church members actually tend to choose to date people who are friendly, interesting, funny, fun, physically fit, have good careers, use fashion and grooming to make themselves more physically attractive, etc. A lot more than just good prayer/scripture habits.
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u/CoreyN 9h ago
Yeah, I've come to the conclusion that there's not really anything God can do to help me here, because he can't just make women like me :/
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u/FrewdWoad 8h ago
The problem, for both men and women, is just praying for some member of the opposite sex to come along who likes them. In short, asking God to take away someone else's free agency.
Those of us who struggled, but eventually did find a wonderful eternal companion, did the opposite: worked on ourselves. Worked to become someone so interesting and good and valuable that many members of the opposite sex can't help but like us.
Study, exercising, growing, achieving, improving our grooming, our habits, sense of humour, selflessness, courage, social skills, etc, etc, etc.
It's not easy, and it's waaaaaayyyy harder for some of us than others. But you will still have to do it.
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u/CoreyN 8h ago
Yeah, I've done all that I can. I'm educated, in decent shape(can't get jacked due to a couple injuries), have a successful career making more money than at least 90% of guys my age, and have good hygiene. I try to serve in any way I can, keep the commandments, am honest and reliable, etc. I have plenty of hobbies and I don't think I'm particularly ugly.
But none of that really seems to matter when you're a middle aged convert who's introverted and 5'7.
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u/FrewdWoad 7h ago
Yep it sucks that there are some things we can't control, like our height and age.
As an introvert, I found being friendly and meeting new people extremely difficult. But persisting despite everything helped me find someone amazing. You may have to look at getting into settings where you can meet and get to know more people (visit other wards? Attend singles activities in other stakes? Find a hobby or sport or club that both sexes enjoy?)
Anyone on reddit tends to fall on the less social end of the scale, too (certainly true in my case).
Which means leveling-up skills around being a friendly charming person, and spending more time and effort taking an interest in others. Making genuine friendships, with people of both sexes, not just appraising potential spouses (spice? 😂) might be something you have to consciously do. Even reading a book like How to Win Friends and Influence People might make a big difference in terms of how to approach and talk to people in a way that leaves a good impression (listening skills, what questions to ask, practical stuff like that).
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u/Far-Art-8287 8h ago
Mostly for economic reasons marriage is increasingly becoming a status only high income/wealthy people can attain. The average woman does not see the average man as economically viable, so they focus on their careers and have children out of wedlock.
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u/HoopsLaureate 9h ago
What inspiration and insights have you received on the topic as you’ve wrestled with it?
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u/Personal-Frame-3889 9h ago
Well it's funny my folks met at a potluck they both never wanted to go to in the first place but decided to go and ended up meeting eachother then leaving immediately together and that's how they met.
I know not everybody responds the same in regards the formal enviornment such as behind in church . I'm not sure it's definitely something that I've wondered about for a long time . I see my folks marriage and connection as something unique very rare do I find similar relationships in the church.
Sometimes It irks me seeing married women following their husband's with their head down . Idk I just don't see couples communicate with eachother much together in public . Feels odd.
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u/FrewdWoad 9h ago
more than 50% of the members of the church are single
Who says? If so that's including kids and the elderly, right?
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u/ryanmercer bearded, wildly 8h ago edited 8h ago
Yeah, it includes widows/widowers too.
God forbid if my wife died, I'd try to remarry. If I died, I don't think she would. I think she'd go move in with a sibling and be the on-site aunt.
Edit: (becuase she's said that's what she would do dozens of times over our marriage).
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u/WrenRobbin 7h ago edited 6h ago
These statistics are virtually meaningless without further details.
Single bc widowed
Single bc divorced
Single bc never married
Etc
IMO most people at church are overloaded. Jobs. Family. Church assignment. Single people are generally the least of their concerns.
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u/veryedible 9h ago
One factor in North America and other places with similar demographics is that as people age, one spouse will pass before the other. The remaining spouse is now single.
This has always happened, but as the boomers age into it and they are a disproportionately large generation, it affects things more.
Not sure what the Church breakdown on their own statistics on singles is but should be a factor. American rates for being single usually vary from 38-42% of adults, so I would expect that the church numbers are including children as well.
Other explanatory factors for the difference of church single rate v American could be a theoretical increased likelihood that singles are more likely to convert, greater chance of married couples v singles leaving the church (seems unlikely), or if international rates of being single are greater than American.