Demographics of Jehovah's Witnesses

As of August 2006, Jehovah's Witnesses have an average membership of approximately 6.6 million actively involved in preaching.^[1] To be counted, an individual must be a 'publisher', and report some amount of time in the ministry, normally at least an hour per month, or as little as 15 minutes under certain circumstances, such as chronic and debilitating illness. In 2006, these reports indicated a total of more than 1.3 billion hours.^[2] Jehovah's Witnesses' preaching activity is self-reported, each member submitting a 'Field Service Report' monthly. Jehovah's Witnesses report activity in 235 lands. They have the custom of counting their membership by 'lands' which are not necessarily countries. For example, Alaska and Hawaii are considered as separate 'lands' from the rest of the United States.

A comparison of Jehovah's Witnesses' 2005 and 2006 statistics indicates an increase in the number of Bible studies, baptisms, Memorial attendance and time spent in the preaching work. Recent decades indicate a significant decline of membership growth, from 8% per annum to less than 2% per annum in less than 20 years. ^[3] The decline in growth became more rapid since 1995, particularly in the Western world. In the United States, an academic study at CUNY based on a telephone survey (American Religious Identification Survey) was conducted in 2001 and estimated there to be 1.331 million adults in the U.S. who self-identify as Jehovah's Witnesses.^[4] Jehovah's Witnesses report over 1 million active publishers in the United States, but because this includes only actively preaching members (including minors), it is not directly comparable to the ARIS numbers. In 1990, a larger but less detailed telephone survey based study (NSRI) at CUNY reported 1.38 million adults in the U.S. who self-identified as Jehovah's Witnesses. While this might indicate a slow decline in U.S. identification with the group, there was an increase in active U.S. publishers over this period. ARIS notes the survey did not cover non-English speakers and small groups with a high proportion of recent immigrant members were likely undercounted. Announced U.S. Witness convention schedules for 2005 included 75 non-English conventions (most of these in Spanish) of 227 total.

The Witnesses are noted for their racial and ethnic integration. In the United States, an academic study found that the proportion of blacks among adults who self-identified as Witnesses at 37% (the highest proportion among any of the 22 largest religious identifications which make up 90% of the U.S. population).^[5] Congregations are generally organized geographically, and members are encouraged to attend the Kingdom Hall in whose territory they reside, resulting in an ethnic mix generally representative of local population.

Jehovah's Witnesses have an active presence in most countries, though they do not form a large part of the population of any country. Brazil, Mexico and the U.S. are the only countries where the number of active Witness publishers exceed 500,000. The highest proportion of Witnesses in a country of substantial size is in Zambia, where 1% are active Witness publishers. Growth in most developed countries is slow or negative in recent years but is offset by rapid growth in less developed lands, particularly the former Communist bloc and Latin America. It appears that membership distribution is gradually shifting from the Western world to Non-Western regions.

Jehovah's Witnesses commemorate the Memorial of Christ's death (also known as the Lord's Evening Meal) annually. According to the February 1, 2006 Watchtower, worldwide attendance at the 2005 celebration of the Memorial was 16,383,333, slightly lower than the 2004 attendance of 16,760,607. This figure includes not only publishers, but inactive members, relatives, visitors and interested persons. In the U.S., 2.3 million people were present. In Zambia 570,000 attended, or 1 person for every 20 in the population. Of over 16 million in attendance worldwide, only 8,524 persons partook of the memorial emblems of unleavened bread and wine. These are those who profess to be anointed ones based on their interpretation of Revelation 14:1.

References

External links

• Interactive map showing JW numbers in individual lands
• Statistics - Statistics on Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society.

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