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Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.
In Utah, July 24 is Pioneer Day, a state holiday commemorating the day in 1847 when the first Mormon settlers, led by Brigham Young, entered the Salt Lake Valley. Today, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Mormon groups make up 58% of Utah's population and 1.7% of the total U.S. adult population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2007. The religious tradition, founded in the United States in 1830, has come under increased public scrutiny in recent years as a result of prominent Mormons in the news, such as Mitt Romney, a 2008 Republican presidential primary candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, as well as the involvement of the LDS church in political issues such as the recent debate over gay marriage in California.
A new analysis of the Landscape Survey data reveals that as a group Mormons are among the most devout and conservative religious people in the country. The Mormon community is also internally diverse, with differences according to levels of religious commitment and educational attainment, regions of the country where Mormons live and between lifelong Mormons and those who have converted to the faith.
Demography
Mormons make up 1.7% of the American adult population, a proportion that is comparable in size to the U.S. Jewish population. By contrast, members of evangelical Protestant churches and Catholics each make up roughly a quarter of the adult population (26.3% and 23.9%, respectively), and 16.1% of Americans say they are unaffiliated with any particular religion. Mormons are more numerous, however, than members of other small religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses (0.7%), Buddhists (0.7%), Muslims (0.6%) and Hindus (0.4%).
The Mormon population in the U.S. is heavily concentrated in the West (76%). In fact, roughly one-third of all American Mormons (35%) live in Utah, the state founded by its early leaders. An additional 13% live in California while 7% reside in Idaho, 5% in Nevada and 4% each in Oregon and Arizona. Only about one-in-ten Mormons (12%) live in the South (including 4% who reside in Texas), 7% live in the Midwest and just 4% reside in the Northeast.
Nearly nine-in-ten Mormons in the U.S. (86%) are white, compared with 71% of the general population. Just 3% of Mormons are African-American and 7% are Latino.
The 26% of Mormons who are converts to the faith differ markedly from lifelong Mormons in several ways. First, converts tend to be older than lifelong Mormons. Nearly half of converts (48%) are over age 50, compared with about three-in-ten lifelong members (29%). Converts also tend to be less educated than nonconverts (16% did not graduate from high school, compared with just 6% of lifelong members) and they earn decidedly lower incomes (40% make less than $30,000 a year, compared with 21% among nonconverts).
Read the full report on the demographic characteristics of Mormons at pewforum.org.
Religious Beliefs and Practices
On a host of religious measures, Mormons stand out for having exceptionally high levels of religious commitment. Mormons are a believing people, with more than nine-in-ten professing the Bible as the word of God, belief in life after death and miracles. Fully 100% say they believe in God or a supreme being, which is higher than among any other religious group. Mormons also are remarkably observant in their religious practices, with three-quarters attending church and reading Scripture outside of services at least once a week and more than eight-in-ten praying daily. Similarly, Mormons strongly support a strict interpretation of their faith and the preservation of traditional beliefs and practices. Mormons also register strong opposition to the idea that religion causes problems in society.
More than eight-in-ten (83%) Mormons say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56% of the general population. On this measure, Mormons are similar to members of evangelical (79%) and historically black (85%) Protestant churches and Jehovah's Witnesses (86%).
Mormons are among the most active of the major religious traditions in terms of attendance at religious services. Fully three-quarters (76%) say they attend church at least once a week, compared with 39% among the general population. Only among Jehovah's Witnesses do as many say they attend services at least weekly (82%). By comparison, the figure among members of evangelical and black Protestant churches is about six-in-ten, while less than half of adherents to other major religious traditions in the U.S. attend services on a weekly basis.
Read the full report on the the religious beliefs and practices of Mormons at pewforum.org.
Social and Political Views
Mormons stand out from the general population and other major religious traditions for their conservatism on both cultural and political issues. Strong majorities of Mormons say there are absolute standards of right and wrong and that they feel their values are often threatened by Hollywood. They also are considerably more Republican than any other major religious tradition, including members of evangelical Protestant churches, and tend to take conservative positions on whether abortion should be legal or illegal, whether homosexuality should be accepted or discouraged by society and views of the size and role of government. On issues of foreign affairs, Mormons stand out for their view that the U.S. should be active in world affairs and for being slightly more likely than others to favor military strength over diplomacy.
The summer 2007 Landscape Survey finds that an even larger share of Mormons identify as Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party than identify as conservative. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of Mormons say they identify with or lean toward the Republican party, 15 percentage points higher than among members of evangelical churches (50%) and 30 points higher than among the general population (35%). Just one-fifth of Mormons (22%) say they are Democrats and the remainder say they do not favor either party. Members of historically black churches are the only religious group in which there is more consensus in partisanship than Mormons, with 77% identifying as Democrats.
This places Mormons to the right of all other major religious traditions on a continuum of ideology and partisanship; in fact, they are somewhat more conservative and Republican than members of evangelical Protestant churches. By contrast, smaller, non-Christian religious traditions, such as Hindus, Buddhists and Jews, cluster around the liberal, Democratic end of the spectrum. Members of historically black Protestant churches are the farthest along the Democratic spectrum but are more conservative than members of other faiths that lean Democratic.
Most Mormons take an anti-abortion or "pro-life" position on the issue of abortion. Fully 70% say abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances, compared with 42% among the general population. Two-thirds of Mormons (68%) say homosexuality should be discouraged rather than accepted by society. When asked about the theory of evolution, only 22% of Mormons say it is the best explanation for human life, with three-in-four (75%) disagreeing.
Read the full report on the social and political views of Mormons at pewforum.org.
For more information see the new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life resource page on Mormonism.