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Divergent growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints in the United States, 1990–2004: Diaspora, gathering, and the East–West divide
Author(s) -
Otterstrom Samuel M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
population, space and place
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.398
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1544-8452
pISSN - 1544-8444
DOI - 10.1002/psp.486
Subject(s) - diaspora , population , pace , divergence (linguistics) , index (typography) , population growth , geography , distribution (mathematics) , economic geography , demography , development economics , history , sociology , economics , gender studies , mathematics , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , geodesy , world wide web , computer science
This paper analyses the spatially divergent growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints from 1990 to 2004 in the US. The Church has been based in Utah since 1847, and its membership continues to be concentrated in the West. However, recent population trends show an ongoing diaspora throughout the country marked by local and regional clusters (or ‘gatherings’) where more rapid growth and larger relative membership sizes are evident. The Church is growing fastest in the central and eastern portions of the country, exceeding general population growth rates there. Natural increase in these areas has been greatly augmented by conversions and in‐migration. Comparisons using the Hoover index of concentration and the Duncan index of dissimilarity also show that with the regional divergence of Church growth rates, its membership distribution is slowly becoming more similar to that of the general population. Although future Church membership growth in the eastern parts of the country will probably be counterbalanced by the sheer size of population increases in the traditional Church population centres in the West, recent data show that the West has become increasingly less Mormon as conversions and natural increase have not kept pace with the migration of non‐Mormons into the region. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.