OK, I’m four years late in providing the GQ answer but in my defense, the Mormon church has never released their numbers.
Only recently have independent Mormon demographers released their estimated numbers of active Mormons worldwide, which they put at 4.5 million. (The LDS church does not release the number of active members, but only touts the number of total members, which is above 15 million worldwide.)
Americans and Canadians represent about 58% of active members. Central and South America provide 27%, and the Philippines is 3%. The Americas and PI are 88%.
Sub-Sahara in another 4%, Western Europe is about 2.1%, New Zealand and Australia are 1.8%, the remaining Oceania is 2%. East Asia is 1.5%.
Taking the race of members from the Pew Research survey for 2011
So, taking my WAG at the breakdown of race within each region, I get the following numbers:
White…57%
Hispanic…30%
Black …4.8%
East Asian…1.3%
Filipino…2.9%
Pacific Islanders…2.2%
Other…1.8%
Any guesses as to the race breakdown of the leadership?
Tends:
Those who study these things are divided into three camps.
Optimistic:
While the overall growth rate has declined, there is sufficient growth in Brazil, modest growth in the US, spotty growth in the PI and outstanding growth Africa to keep the rate positive in the short term. Flat growth in most of the rest of the world is acknowledged.
Long term trends are generally not looked at.
TB notes: If this is the case, expect the percentage of whites to continue to decline and the number of Hispanics, Black Africans and Filipinos to increase.
Pessimistic:
The net negative decline in active members in the UK and the flat growth in Western Europe is a harbinger of what will occur in the US as the number of disaffected members overtake the number of new members. Growth outside of the US will not offset the net losses.
Long term treads: We are at or near the peak of active members.
TB notes: This is perhaps a little overly pessimistic, but outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, the days of wild growth for the church are pretty much over.
The percentage of active Mormons in the US will never be higher than now. Looking at California, despite there being 17 missions of 200 plus missionaries per mission, all the efforts of the 3400 missionaries combined with the larger than average number of children has not been enough to offset slowly declining numbers of active members. The number of stakes (administrative groups of congregations) is less now than in 1994.
The question of when whites will become a minority is a matter of time.
“Fence sitters”:
Donno. Somewhere between.
TB notes: Where is Nate Silver when you need him?
