Jon Birger, writing in Time magazine, decided to look at Mormons and Orthodox Jews to see if these two very religious cultures that emphasize marriage, were troubled by the same dating crisis that afflicts the rest of the nation.
He says he hit pay dirt studying Mormons because Trinity College’s American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) had demographics on Mormons. “According to the ARIS study, there are now 150 Mormon women for every 100 Mormon men in the state of Utah—a 50 percent oversupply of women.”
Birger writes:
At first glance, the state of Utah—60 percent Mormon and home of the LDS church—looks like the wrong place to study what I like to call the man deficit. Like several other western states, Utah actually has more men than women. Utah’s ratio of men to women across all age groups is the fifth highest in the nation. But lurking beneath the Census data is a demographic anomaly that makes Utah a textbook example of how shifting gender ratios alter behavior. The LDS church actually has one of the most lopsided gender ratios of any religion in the United States.
“There are so many options for the men, it’s no wonder it’s hard for them to settle down,” said Deena Cox, a single, 34-year-old office manager who lives in Salt Lake City.
One fact that becomes apparent when studying the demographics of religion is that it is almost always the women who are more devout. Across all faiths, women are less likely than men to leave organized religion. According to the Pew Research Center, 67 percent of self-described atheists are men. Statistically speaking, an atheist meeting may be one of the best places for single women to meet available men.
Due to men’s generally higher rates of apostasy, it makes sense that the modern LDS church, like most religions, would have slightly more women than men. The Utah LDS church was in fact 52 percent female as recently as 1990. Since 1990, however, the Mormon gender gap in Utah has widened dramatically—from a gender ratio of 52:48 female to male in 1990 to 60:40 female to male in 2008, according to a study coauthored by ARIS researchers Rick Phillips, Ryan Cragun, and Barry Kosmin. In other words, the LDS church in Utah now has three women for every two men.
The sex ratio is especially lopsided among Mormon singles. Many individual LDS churches—known as “wards”—are organized by marital status, with families attending different Sunday services from single people. Parley’s Seventh, one of Salt Lake City’s singles wards, had 429 women on its rolls in 2013 versus only 264 men, according to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper.
Birger suggests that this lopsidedness coupled with our LDS urgency for marriage is creating cultural pressures for women that may not always be healthy.
Read the article here.
James the "Old"August 31, 2015
Interesting article; excellent comments. I would add: Guys are getting blamed for the lack of "box checking" in finding eternal companions. The guys do have some culpability; but the women are as bad -- but they seem to be less accountable for it. But then -- guys are getting blamed for everything these days.
HappyWife... HappyLifeAugust 31, 2015
I did not marry a return missionary. He was actually less active when we married, mostly due to work & military schedules (he came when he could). When people asked him where he served is mission he'd say the USNR (United States Naval Reserve). Dang near everyone thought he went to Russia! 29 years later, we are happy. We were sealed on our 5th wedding anniversary, we have 3 daughters and I NEVER told them not to marry non-RM's. They would have missed out on a great guy like their dad. When I was in a YW presidency I taught the same things to those girls. RM / Eagle Scout / Duty to God are all wonderful achievements, but they are not to be the sole measure of a man. What about the man who joins the church in his mid-20's and never had an opportunity to serve a mission? Or someone that had rough teen years and comes back to full activity? Girls, do not overlook these worthy men because of some checklist in your head!