Is There A "Growing Up In Utah" Effect on Church Activity?

A bigger difference than I expected. Can you guess which direction?

Photo by Kellen Riggin on Unsplash

Introduction

Previously, I wrote a 4 part series understanding those who leave the church using data from the Pew Religious Landscape study; however, one key aspect (where you are raised) was left out since it wasn’t asked.

Good news - this week working through the General Social Survey, I found they have the “where did you grow up” variable

Not as good news - they group states together regionally, so the best we can do is the “mountain” region which includes…

• Utah

• Idaho

• Arizona

• Wyoming

• Nevada

• Colorado

• Montana

• New Mexico

  

So our question actually is… Does being raised inside or outside the Mountain region matter for whether someone chooses to stay or leave the church?

Even though seeing the Utah break would be the most interesting, the states in the mountain region cover most of the more proportionally densely populated Latter-day Saint states in the US.

Chart

So, does where you grow up matter? The answer is yes - it matters.

So, looking at the raw counts, members are ~10 percentage points more likely to leave if they grew up outside the mountain region of the US vs. inside.

To verify this finding, I ran a regression model with several controls.

Even with control variables, I found a statistically significant relationship at the 99% confidence level between leaving the church and growing up outside the mountain region.

Conclusion

In the past 50 years, members who were raised in the church were 50% more likely to leave if they grew up outside the mountain region vs. inside.

What do you think of this data? Does this track with what you thought?

See you next week!

Code available here. Data publicly available here.