It would also be interesting to see this with Area 70s included.
Another data point would be by country, when was the first stake created? It takes decades before a country is seasoned enough to produce general leaders, because most of those senior leaders are needed for local leadership like stake presidencies and area 70s.
Lucky you, I have the data open right now so I'll just grab the Mexico numbers for you.
According to my dataset, 4% of leadership was born in Mexico and Mexico makes up 8.7% of members of records. So the disparity isn't as large as Central America, but is similar to Latin America in general.
Ya perhaps at some point I'll add the area seventies to my data set!
I like where your mind is going with the last point. It would be interesting to see how those two numbers are correlated. Perhaps I'll do this for another week.
Activity levels are gathered/known but not publicized.
As for seasoning time? The missionary effort in South and Central America (long suggested anchor point of BoM geography) is by far more mature than it is on the African continent. Correlation of mission growth over time would be an available data point.
I know I already commented, but I wonder how much English Proficiency would affect this? Perhaps there are many otherwise qualified and prepared individuals in underrepresented areas but who don't speak English well enough? I'm not aware of a Church requirement that general authorities must speak English, but it wouldn't surprise me if it existed.
I like that you pointed out the "lower activity rates" in certain areas argument. I also would love to see some data about this. From personal experience I feel it's true (emphasis on feel). I served my mission in Chihuahua Mexico and I recall our ward lists having 600-800 members. In my last two wards (Las Vegas, NV & Price, UT) we have around 500. I agree I'd love to see actual data from the Church on this. Great post, thanks!
I anecdotally believe that the US has better activity rates than some other regions, but would be interested in if Latin America was really that much worse than say Africa. I just don't know. I know there may be some census data that asks about religion in some countries so I may explore that in the future.
From what I gather from Matt Martinich's work at the Cumorah Project, Africa has some of the highest activity rates in the church (and to clarify, I understand Africa is a massive continent with over a billion people, so this is just a very general statement). For example, in the DRC last year congregational growth outpaced membership growth, indicating that activity is increasing beyond just those that are being baptized (and this was also a year in which double digit membership growth occurred while total membership surpassed 100,00, a rare feat).
Thanks for this comment. Thinking about what you said, i kinda want to make a members per congregation(crude measure for activity) vs. leadership disparity chart by region to see if there is any relationship.
Interesting data for sure especially from the perspective of church growth and its impact on leadership representation, I think we are assuming here that outside of local leaders which should be more representative of membership population, the regional and area leadership positions and up aren’t always filled by local representation nor do I think that is always a major focus of the church. We have an interesting leadership assignment and tenure of leadership process that is unique to our church so I wouldn’t assume a strong correlation here above the local representation. Again interesting data for sure and cool to see the church growth and a broader leadership representation, but I think we would be looking for the wrong answer if we are expecting an equal spread of leadership across all regions based on population, instead of the intent of finding the right leader regardless of their location for the few years they serve in that position. Thanks for the info! Keep it coming.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective here. I think regardless whether you think representation is important in church leadership, its still interesting to know the facts!
I think this is a fair point. Perhaps we should take the average age of the general authorities and look at the membership distribution at their time of birth. Leadership may be over represented in several regions if we did -- though It may still lag behind in Latin America for whatever reason.
I'm curious with Cen and S America membership not only possible higher percentage of less active, but maybe a higher percentage of members of record who would not identify as LDS, and who are dead or were never real people? Given the history of baseball and football (soccer) baptisms and other similar practices.
I would love to see the breakout of Mexico.
It would also be interesting to see this with Area 70s included.
Another data point would be by country, when was the first stake created? It takes decades before a country is seasoned enough to produce general leaders, because most of those senior leaders are needed for local leadership like stake presidencies and area 70s.
Lucky you, I have the data open right now so I'll just grab the Mexico numbers for you.
According to my dataset, 4% of leadership was born in Mexico and Mexico makes up 8.7% of members of records. So the disparity isn't as large as Central America, but is similar to Latin America in general.
Ya perhaps at some point I'll add the area seventies to my data set!
I like where your mind is going with the last point. It would be interesting to see how those two numbers are correlated. Perhaps I'll do this for another week.
Activity levels are gathered/known but not publicized.
As for seasoning time? The missionary effort in South and Central America (long suggested anchor point of BoM geography) is by far more mature than it is on the African continent. Correlation of mission growth over time would be an available data point.
I know I already commented, but I wonder how much English Proficiency would affect this? Perhaps there are many otherwise qualified and prepared individuals in underrepresented areas but who don't speak English well enough? I'm not aware of a Church requirement that general authorities must speak English, but it wouldn't surprise me if it existed.
This is a great point and something I didn't even think about, but I bet there is a correlation there (e.g. Many europeans know english)
I like that you pointed out the "lower activity rates" in certain areas argument. I also would love to see some data about this. From personal experience I feel it's true (emphasis on feel). I served my mission in Chihuahua Mexico and I recall our ward lists having 600-800 members. In my last two wards (Las Vegas, NV & Price, UT) we have around 500. I agree I'd love to see actual data from the Church on this. Great post, thanks!
I anecdotally believe that the US has better activity rates than some other regions, but would be interested in if Latin America was really that much worse than say Africa. I just don't know. I know there may be some census data that asks about religion in some countries so I may explore that in the future.
From what I gather from Matt Martinich's work at the Cumorah Project, Africa has some of the highest activity rates in the church (and to clarify, I understand Africa is a massive continent with over a billion people, so this is just a very general statement). For example, in the DRC last year congregational growth outpaced membership growth, indicating that activity is increasing beyond just those that are being baptized (and this was also a year in which double digit membership growth occurred while total membership surpassed 100,00, a rare feat).
Thanks for this comment. Thinking about what you said, i kinda want to make a members per congregation(crude measure for activity) vs. leadership disparity chart by region to see if there is any relationship.
Do it!
Just made it at the end of my latest post, if you are still interested
https://mormonmetrics.substack.com/p/general-authority-gender-race-more
Love it! Thanks for all your hard work, this is truly impressive.
Census data is an avenue but it would need to be factored carefully.
The church counts members of record who do not self-identify (converts who depart in their first year is one example but there are many more).
The only way to obtain an accurate dataset would be to access actual weekly attendance records.
Interesting data for sure especially from the perspective of church growth and its impact on leadership representation, I think we are assuming here that outside of local leaders which should be more representative of membership population, the regional and area leadership positions and up aren’t always filled by local representation nor do I think that is always a major focus of the church. We have an interesting leadership assignment and tenure of leadership process that is unique to our church so I wouldn’t assume a strong correlation here above the local representation. Again interesting data for sure and cool to see the church growth and a broader leadership representation, but I think we would be looking for the wrong answer if we are expecting an equal spread of leadership across all regions based on population, instead of the intent of finding the right leader regardless of their location for the few years they serve in that position. Thanks for the info! Keep it coming.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective here. I think regardless whether you think representation is important in church leadership, its still interesting to know the facts!
Do you have data on Utah v. Rest of North America? Interested in how that would skew things.
There is actually a pretty notable gap with this one.
Utah records 32% of the US membership yet 51% of full-time general authorities are from Utah
That is, 51% of US born general authorities are from Utah.
A factor here may be the age of church leadership. I wonder if using older statistics on things distribution would yield better alignment.
I think this is a fair point. Perhaps we should take the average age of the general authorities and look at the membership distribution at their time of birth. Leadership may be over represented in several regions if we did -- though It may still lag behind in Latin America for whatever reason.
I'm curious with Cen and S America membership not only possible higher percentage of less active, but maybe a higher percentage of members of record who would not identify as LDS, and who are dead or were never real people? Given the history of baseball and football (soccer) baptisms and other similar practices.
Beautifully written. There’s something rare about seeing honesty that cuts through the noise.
I write in a similar vein — stories, faith, freedom, and the war for meaning.
If it speaks to you, stop by my page. Leave your thoughts — I’d genuinely love to know how it hits you.