World population growth rate is 1.13%, whilst Jehovah's Witness average publishers grew by 1.8%. Watchtower growth is outpacing population growth, though at a dismal rate considering the 2 billion hours of preaching required for an increase of just 115,194. This is an aggregate number, and most growth is from developing nations in Africa and South America.
What I was really interested in finding is how Watchtower growth compares to the population growth in different countries. It is very revealing, as out of the 205 countries identified, 107 grew at a lower rate than the population growth, and only 98 outpaced the population. This is an astounding figure, as in more than half the world, the preaching work is unable to back fill the children that are leaving.
In the following graph, the green countries are where Jehovah's Witnesses are growing faster than the population average.
I then produced another graph to highlight countries where there were 100 more publishers than if the religion increased at the population average. This was to because there are a number of countries with just a handful of publishers more than the natural growth of that country, such as Greenland.
The remarkable result was that Mexico disappeared. Although Mexico appears to be one of Watchtower's big growth countries, with 1.38% increase and 11,312 new publishers, Mexico's population is growing at 1.37% and so the growth is less than 100 publishers more than could come just from child birth.
You may notice that I have coloured the banned countries in red, despite there being a claimed 12% growth. This is because the growth is insignificant compared to the population, and skews the results if included. The increase across 31 countries was only 4,369 out of a population base of over 3 billion (3,072,066,923).