Salt Lake Tribune: over half leave LDS

The Salt Lake Tribune on Aug. 5 published Jana Riess’s account of a sharp retention problem among women raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Riess, writing from new survey data and forthcoming book research, said women are now more likely than men to leave the faith, especially at younger ages. The article centers on three recurring complaints she said emerged in the research: politics, purity culture and powerlessness. The piece adds to a broader run of recent reporting on who is leaving the church and why. ### How large is the drop among younger women? Ryan Burge’s 2025 Spiritual Seismology Survey, cited by Riess, sampled 100,741 U.S. adults, including 1,177 people raised Latter-day Saint. In that survey, only about four in 10 Gen Z women who grew up LDS were still in the church, and the retention rate for 18-year-old women was 37.5%, Riess wrote. (sltrib.com) Pew’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study pointed in the same direction, though with less severe numbers. Riess wrote that two-thirds of women over 50 who were raised LDS had stayed, compared with just under half of younger women, a 17-point gap. In the Pew breakout reproduced in the Religion News Service version, women ages 18 to 49 showed a 49% adult retention rate, versus 66% for women 50 and older. (sltrib.com) ### Where did the “more than half have left” figure come from? Religion News Service and The Salt Lake Tribune both framed the finding in direct terms: more than half of young adult women who grew up LDS have now left. That phrasing comes from the survey results Riess highlighted, which show retention among younger women below 50% in Pew’s data and near 40% for Gen Z women in Burge’s survey. (religionnews.com) The article also set that decline against an older baseline. Riess wrote that the church kept about eight in 10 childhood members in the 1980s, compared with about half today. ### Why does Riess say politics is part of the story? Jana Riess and political scientist Benjamin Knoll, in research for their forthcoming book “Leaving Mormonism: Who Is Exiting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and Why,” argue that younger women’s disaffiliation is partly political. (sltrib.com) Riess wrote that young women in the United States have become more liberal than young men and that this matters because political identity increasingly shapes religious affiliation and disaffiliation. Gallup data cited by Riess showed the gap in left-leaning identification between young women and young men widening from 3 percentage points two decades ago to 15 points now, 40% versus 25%. Riess also cited PRRI and Change Research as finding Gen Z women among the country’s most liberal demographic groups. ### What do “purity culture” and “powerlessness” refer to here? (sltrib.com) Riess summarized her explanation as the “three Ps”: politics, purity culture and powerlessness. In the Salt Lake Tribune and Religion News Service versions, she said these themes help explain why younger women are leaving at higher rates than earlier generations. (sltrib.com) The power question has surfaced in earlier LDS retention reporting as well. In a March 2024 Salt Lake Tribune interview about a separate survey of current and former Latter-day Saints, researchers Josh Coates and Stephen Cranney said former members were much more likely to identify as LGBTQ than current members, another sign that belonging and institutional fit are central to who stays and who leaves. (sltrib.com) ### What should readers watch next? Riess said her argument draws from a forthcoming book with Benjamin Knoll, which is expected to expand beyond headline retention numbers into reasons for exit. The latest article also leans on two separate datasets — Burge’s 2025 Spiritual Seismology Survey and Pew’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study — so the next reporting will likely turn on whether additional church-specific research reproduces the same gender and age gaps. (sltrib.com 1) (sltrib.com 2)