Only 37% of people raised as JW's stay JW's when adult.....

by My Struggle 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  My Struggle

  This comes from a religious study of several faiths which included Jehovah's Witnesses. There is a ton of data in this research and there are several things that are very interesting about JW's especially when compared with other denominations/faiths. You can do a basic search of the study here http://religions.pewforum.org/portraits

  One thing that I was always curious about is how many born-ins leave the faith. Personally the vast majority of the born-ins that I knew left, including myself. So, I was not all that surprised to find that only 37% stay in, which happens to be the lowest retention rate of any of the studied religions/denominations. You can find that piece of data here, it is the next to last bullet point at the bottom of the page. http://religions.pewforum.org/reports/reports_1 which is also on pg 31 of the full report http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf

  For any researchers out there...I could not find there margin of error or if this was a statistically significant number. Oh well, still interesting :)
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  PEC

  63% of born-in's, would rather be shunned, by all thier family, than stay in the JW cult.

  Philip(of the 63% sheep class)
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  My Struggle

  I wonder how different this stat would be if the JW's were more mainline and had youth groups or any type of special training for childern at the KH.
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  TheSilence

  Sounds about right. I'm the oldest of 4 and only 1 of us is a Witness today.

  I just glanced through but didn't see anything about suicide statistics. Did you happen to see that there? I would be interested to know.

  Jackie
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  yknot

  and of that 37%, 98% aren't as loyal as their parents to the WTS.....(but that is just my observations)
• 

  Black Sheep

  The sad part is that a large percentage of the dropouts lose their relationships with their families.

  Some haven't as their parents have left too.

  I have been lucky because I didn't make the mistake of baptism.

  My relationship with my family is disfunctional but I am not shunned.

  I would like to see statistics on how children of JWs (and other cults) consider their relationship with their parents: excellent/functional/disfunctional.

  Cheers

  Chris
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  Gill

  Hello Everyone!

  This is so true!

  We were considering our own family. Only 5 years ago, 100 % were JWs through and through.

  Now only 45 % are still JWs.

  As we have grown, so we have woken up and left.

  The WT Society is also quietly attempting to disappear from the lives of its members but some of them have noticed that something sneaky is going on. It will be interesting to see what the next year or two will bring in Watchtower land.
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  JimmyPage

  The WT Society is also quietly attempting to disappear from the lives of its members but some of them have noticed that something sneaky is going on. It will be interesting to see what the next year or two will bring in Watchtower land.

  I completely agree with this statement and I think it's a very important observation. Of course, it's being interpreted by the diehards as "the Society is preparing for the end". Yeah, but not the end most JWs have in mind!
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  jwfacts

  That figure is quite accurate, both from my personal observation and from the statistics that I have run.

  At http://www.jwfacts.com/index_files/statistics.htm it looks at the statistics from the Watchtower publications. As an example, in 2006 the increase in publishers was 101,000 yet 248,000 were baptised. This means that the increase was only 40% of the number baptised; therefore, 60% left or died. That does not include those raised that never become unbaptised publishers, which would indicate an even greater number of those raised in it do not stay.
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  Cali2CO

  I fully believe those statistics since my husband and I both grew up in the religion and both left. Most of our friends that we grew up with have also left. When discussing this with our friends it seems those who have grown up in the religion notice more hypocrasy. While those that joined the religion as an adult seem to have come from drugs, or something else they were running from and were looking for answers. What is sad is they all think just because we left the religion that we are now destined to turn to a horrible life that they left behind. Balance people! God forbid anyone have balance in their live, with the JW's it all or nothing.