A few years ago in October 2012 the Church dropped the age for missionaries from 19 to 18 for men and 21 to 19 for women. There are various speculations of why the Church did this although I don’t think anyone knows for sure. (A popular explanation is that it cuts down on young men leaving the church when they go to college for their Freshman year) Regardless of why the Brethren did this, at the time I was concerned that it would lead to less effective missionaries. We now have a few years worth of data so we can examine the effect, In my view the most recent Church data in particular tells a story of a drop in missionary effectiveness.

Here’s the data on the converts per missionary for the years prior to the change and after (including last year’s data).

Year Convert Baptisms Missionaries Converts/Missionary 2009 280,106 51,736 5.41 2010 272,814 52,225 5.22 2011 281,312 55,410 5.08 2012 272,330 58,990 4.62 2013 282,945 83,035 3.41 2014 296,803 85,147 3.49 2015 257,402 74,079 3.47

You’ll note that number of conversions per missionary from the most recent data is virtually the same as the previous year’s. That’s despite the “surge” of missionaries ending due to the changes in age.

One thing that’s important to note is that the number of converts per missionary dropped significantly after the age change. At first there was some thought that the drop was due to inefficiencies due to having to deal with the sudden influx of missionaries. Starting at the end of 2012 there were those age 19 who hadn’t gone yet plus all the ones who were 18 and now able to go. Not to mention an even bigger surge with sister missionaries. However when that surge ended yet the conversion rate did not increase back to the rate it was prior to 2012. This is a difference of nearly 2 baptisms per missionary. (The rate has fluctuated somewhat, dropping to 4.31 in 2003 but reaching a high of 8.03 in 1989 for the era after 1970)

Here’s the data for what I’d term the contemporary era. The peak in the late 80’s probably was in part due to significant growth in Latin America although there are indications that many of these baptisms had poor retention. (I’m not sure if reacting to this and focusing on better conversions accounts for the drop in the early 90’s) The biggest demographic shift in American religiosity starts occurring in the mid 90’s. I don’t know how much of that societal shift accounts for the drop given the difference between American and non-American baptisms. It is a possible effect though. During that era Pres. Hinkley also changed missionary service with more focus on retention, working with recent converts and more service work by missionaries rather than pure proselytizing each day. You can see the big drop that comes with the change in the missionary age though. This is after a relative period of growth from 2004 to 2011.

The other big drop is in the early 80s. This corresponds to the change of the length of a mission from 2 years to 18 months starting spring 1982. Effective in January 1985 the length of service retuned to 2 years. Those already out were able to stay for either 18 months or 2 years. Perhaps in part because of that transition period the rate of conversion didn’t rebound until 1988. As I said though that was also the era of huge growth in Latin America so one has to be careful teasing out the separate influence of different effects. However when you look at the number of missionaries in the 80’s you had around 29,000 from 1979 to 1981. Then in 1982 that drops to 26,000 and doesn’t return to 29,000 until 1985. The numbers don’t really return to trend until 1988.

In 1986 during this same era, the Church introduced new memorized missionary lessons. (These were what I used on my mission) These were used until 2004. It’s hard to tell what effect, if any, shifting the manuals had although not afterwards the conversion rate per missionary starts increasing quickly. It is interesting though that around 2004 when the latest missionary teaching program was introduced we start to see slowly increasing growth in the conversion rate. So It’s quite possible changing lessons and pedagogy had an increase in effectiveness with each switch.

The other interesting thing that pops out looking at the number of missionaries is the huge drop beginning in 2003. This corresponded to increased worthiness and physical requirements for young people planning on going on a mission. Unsurprisingly this led to a significant drop in the number of missionaries in the field. While total baptisms dropped for a few years, conversion numbers returned by 2006. Since a lower number of missionaries were getting the same results the larger number had, this explains the growth in conversion rates in our first chart starting around 2002 until 2009. The drop in effectiveness really starts somewhere around 2009. I’m not sure what, if anything, happened in 2009 to explain the change. It is interesting that around that time the rate of growth in the number of missionaries also starts increasing. So this may just be a population issue.

It’s worth comparing the conversion rate to the number of convert baptisms. After all throwing more missionaries to an area where there’s a limited number of people interested in converting won’t necessarily be helpful.

You’ll note that the big bump in the late 80’s is still prominent. You can also see that growth in conversion actually starts earlier in the 80’s despite the drop in converts per missionary. Likewise the growth is increasing at the end of the graph but that’s mainly because there are many more missionaries out. As the number of missionary drops to more normal numbers the effect of what are likely less effective missionaries becomes quite clear.

My guess given the relative consistency of the new conversions is that the current baptism rate is the new normal. Further given how tied to the policy change it is, this doesn’t appear to be tied to larger demographic changes such as one could argue occurred in the 90’s. We should note that the change back to 2 year missions took a few years to take effect. It’s similarly possible that the missionary system still hasn’t fully come to grips with the changes in the ages of missionaries. However it’s also quite possible that the drop in age to 18 simply means more missionaries with less social maturity. That in turn affects their abilities as missionaries. I don’t say this as a criticism of 18 year olds — I’d hate to imagine what I’d have been like as an 18 year old missionary. I was very shy and socially immature even at 19 – and my parents had me go out towards the end of my 19th year. Different people mature at very different rates. I think by dropping the age to 18 you’re picking up a large cohort who perhaps are more like where some of the other missionaries were at 16.

From the data I suspect that with the new age policy we should expect a drop in the number of conversions each year to be more on par with the rate in era from 2002 – 2004. If the issue were just about conversions, it would seem plausible that allowing more men to go on missions, increasing proselytizing time and increasing the age for missions would be of great benefit. That’s not to say that’s the right thing to do of course.

Whether the church maintains this policy or if they change it remains to be seen. I suspect they’ll wait for a few years more data to see if conversion rates per missionary return to the numbers of say 2010. If the change in the 1980’s is any indication when something isn’t working the Church soon modifies it. However the Church isn’t merely focused on conversions but also young adult retention and convert retention. These statistics simply don’t tell what’s going on with those questions of retention. We don’t really have data that tells us much there.

I confess I’m skeptical this will have a large impact on retention of young adult males. There are many demographic shifts in the US working against such an effect. If the Church maintains the current missionary age though I would lay good odds it’s because of retention of these return missionaries.