Aust Census: JW's and Divorce Rates

by shepherdless 13 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  slimboyfat

  Yes point taken about mixed marriage divorces counting, and about comparability with other religions.

  With statistics from censuses in general, there are lots of complicating factors to consider. When we see graphs, and tables of numbers, we may naturally tend think that the production of the data was as reliable, accurate and uniform as the reassuringly organised method of its display. Unfortunately there is lots of room for skewed data and misleading comparisons to arise.

  For example:

  1. The format of the census may differ from year to year, including different options, in different orders, and with different prompts. Such apparently small changes can significantly impact results.

  2. Religious organisations may encourage identification with their church during a census. For example I read a report that the Mormon church was concerned about the low numbers identifying as Mormon in South American censuses. So they initiatiated a campaign to contact and encourage all inactive Mormons to identify as Mormons in the next census. This no doubt impacts results where such campaigns are conducted. Needless to say not all churches carry out such campaigns, so are we really comparing like with like?

  3. Censuses differ hugely from country to country in scope and intent. The UK census is pretty useless at counting JWs because the British census invites all Chrsitan denominations to identify simply as "Christian". Those JWs who wrote "Jehovah's Witness" in the "other" box numbered around 70,000 in 2001. On the one hand that's a lot fewer than the 130,000 publishers JWs claimed in Britain. But on the other hand those JWs had resisted hints in the census form to pick "Christian" as a catch all term. In fact JW s were the biggest "write in" category of "other religion" in the UK. Which may be interpreted as an impressive display of distinctiveness. But ultimately, UK census results are pretty useless for comparing numbers of JWs with other groups or over time.

  There's a good discussion of the problem of the "other" category in the UK census here:

  http://www.brin.ac.uk/2012/census-2011-any-other-religion/

  It's interesting that the author of that page assumed that the JW "write in" response was "orchestrated". I can see why he would assume it must have been, because it's such a large number, and "Christian" would appear to be an adequate response for JWs to most outsiders. But I don't recall any particular instruction from WT about how to fill in the census. And I think people familiar with JWs and how they think realise that often JWs don't need to be told to act distinctly in such situations. For a significant proportion of JWs it comes naturally to insist on a separate identity, even when being encouraged to identify as "Christian": for about 70,000 of them in the UK in 2001, to be exact.
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  shepherdless

  Sorry to take so long to reply, sbf.

  With statistics from censuses in general, there are lots of complicating factors to consider. When we see graphs, and tables of numbers, we may naturally tend think that the production of the data was as reliable, accurate and uniform as the reassuringly organised method of its display. Unfortunately there is lots of room for skewed data and misleading comparisons to arise.

  Absolutely. I am only an amateur, and I am learning a lot. I have seen glossy charts and data elsewhere, and I now know how dodgy that data can be; particularly if there is a political agenda.

  The format of the census may differ from year to year...

  For the "religion" question, the only change (and it was a big one) was to move "no religion" from bottom to top, as shown in the following:

  Extract from 2011 form:

  
  

  Extract from 2016 form:

  
  

  Christian groups lobbied heavily against this change before the census, but lost, because the logic of the census form elsewhere is that the most common answer should be at the top of the list.

  they initiatiated a campaign to contact and encourage all inactive Mormons to identify as Mormons...

  That happened in the Aust census as well. There was a Christian group that asked people to record themselves as Christian, to counterbalance the increase in Islam.

  The UK census is pretty useless at counting JWs because...

  Yes, I agree. I read that link. I didn't check the form but it sounds like the main fault with the UK form is that you can just select "Christian". You can't do that on the Aust form; see above. And yes, the author of that article doesn't understand JW's.

  * * * * *

  As a general comment from me, there were always going to be problems with the interpretation of the religion vs divorce statistics. I realised a few as I was attempting the task. Others have pointed out a few more. I think the stats are still useful, but only as a broad guide.

  I plan to do a few more, when I get the time, (eg income, education levels etc) which should be more straightforward and less open to interpretation.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Shepherdless your presentation of the figures is very good and you obviously know what you are doing. My comments are intended to be supportive.

  I wonder if you've come across a book called Sects and Stats by James R. Lewis. He's a religious studies scholar who uses census data to study small sects in anglophone countries. So very similar territory, except he doesn't discuss JWs. But his work may be helpful in terms of methodology.

  https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/sects-stats/

  When I read this book I was initially excited about applying his methods to JWs - until he said that the data are very expensive to access.

  Also I suppose you know of the work of Ryan Cragun and Ronald Lawson on JWs, Mormons and Adventists.

  https://www.ryantcragun.com/the-secular-transition-the-worldwide-growth-of-mormons-jehovahs-witnesses-and-seventh-day-adventists/

  Cragun is good with stats on Mormons in particular, and responsive to emails.

  Plus there is that essay by David Voas on JWs, I will send to you if/when I find that book again!

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/172862/british-sociologist-predicts-possible-collapse-jehovahs-witness-numbers

  In fact David Voas is a very interesting sociologist it may be worth you following up, because he supports the secularisation thesis in a particular form that is supportive of some comments you've made on the subject.

  Years ago I had a conversation with scociologist Steve Bruce about religious decline and JWs in particular. He said that his latest work (this was around 2006) was in collaboration with David Voas and they were working with evidence that the mechanism of religious decline is largely the failure to transmit religious affiliation from one generation to the next. In other words, people who are accustomed to attending church/KH tend to keep on doing so. Religious decline is not usually a result of people leaving church en masse. Rather what happens is that, at a certain juncture, the children of the devout are not fully socialised in the church, so they don't continue affiliation as adults. Decline therefore results as the devout age and die, and their children don't replace them in the pews/KHs.

  This may seem obvious actually, but it's the subject of much debate among sociologists. In fact even the very fact of religious decline is (amazingly) in dispute among some prominent sociologists.

  Another excellent book on religous decline is Religion and Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularization in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s by historian Callum Brown.

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Demographic-Revolution-Secularisation-Religious/dp/1843837927/

  He argues for a cultural and gendered explanation of religious decline.
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  shepherdless

  Thanks for the compliment, sbf.

  I am not as well read as you presume. I just don't get much time to read books; I don't even watch tv these days.

  I haven't seen the book, Sects and Stats, but from the table of contents it looks like the author focuses on "longitudinal data" (ie same data measured at different times) which I think is the most useful approach to understanding trends etc.

  i sped read the Cragun and Lawson article. Some excellent observations there, using the figures Mormons, SDA and Watchtower publish.

  I read some extracts of David Voas, some time ago. He made some excellent points about why religion generally is in decline, that I have to agree with, and backs it up with data. I agree decline is generational. From memory, he is the one who uses the Atlantic fishermen analogy, to describe JW's. I don't agree with that analogy, as I think the ordinary publishers are the "catch" not the fishermen.

  Like you, I have also read somewhere that decline itself is not accepted by some "experts". That is bizarre. My explanation for such people is that those that are intellectually proud tend to be more vulnerable to "confirmation bias" than the average person. We were living in a time when one of the greatest events of human history is happening around us; the unshackling of society from the chains of religious superstition. There are very credible stats from USA, South Korea and Aust in recent times (some of the more religious of the advanced countries) each showing religion in decline at the rate of about 1% per year.