The more Utah changes, the more it stays the same, according to demographers who say the Beehive State remains overwhelmingly inhabited by LDS Church members even as outsiders arrive in growing numbers.
Some 75 percent of Utah's residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a geographer whose specialities include charting LDS Church growth.The proportion has been constant since the 1960s and remains so, despite a rapid influx of out-of-staters.
"I expected major changes to have occurred, but they haven't," said Lowell C. "Ben" Bennion, a Salt Lake native and longtime geography professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif.
Bennion, whose findings were published in the December issue of Sunstone magazine, said his research is based largely on information gleaned from church publications.
Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the 1995-96 Church Almanac support Bennion's figures, which dispute an increasingly popular myth that Utah's historically LDS population base has been eroded by the some 20,000 or so individuals who have moved into the state each year since the late 1980s.
"That is kind of the perception," said Brad Barber, deputy director of the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget.
But Barber said census figures have consistently shown that even in modern times three-quarters of the state's residents report affiliation with the LDS Church.
Tim Heaton, a sociology professor at Brigham Young University, said two factors have kept the proportion intact:
- A large percentage of those who move to Utah are LDS.
- LDS women have higher fertility rates than non-Mormon women.
But Heaton, an expert in LDS demographics, said the inexact nature of population studies prevents knowing precisely how current trends are affecting the numbers.
"I don't think we know exactly what's going on," said Heaton, who said murky factors include the ratio of "conversions to disaffiliations" and the precise number of LDS individuals among those immigrating to Utah.
Clearly, though, Utah remains the bastion of the LDS Church, said Bennion, whose compilations conclude that Utah still has more Mormons (about 1.5 million) than any other state and about twice as many as the runner-up, California.
He said the historical Land of Zion remains spiritually alluring for much of the church's diaspora.
"Utah is the homeland," said Bennion.
But he added there are other forces attracting Mormons and non-Mormons alike, ranging from Utah's healthy economy and plentiful jobs to its low crime rate, its plentiful outdoor attractions and its generally non-urban quality of life.
Bennion said, however, that Utah remains the solid center of a "Mormon cultural region" that is rooted along the Wasatch Front but spills into adjacent states. Some 80 percent of the about 4.5 million Mormons in the United States live in 13 Western states, he said, a fact that illustrates the ties the church binds.
"Those born into the Mormon culture retain strong bonds with the place," he said. "Many who have gone out and lived in California, the Pacific Northwest, even back East have returned.
"I sense a strong `Pine for Zion' syndrome."
This is not to say, though, that Utah is homogenous from county to county.
Bennion said his most recent data - collected in part from other demographers - show local LDS proportions in Utah varying from 31 percent in the Canyonlands of southeast Utah's Grand County to 99 percent in Rich County, which encompasses the Bear Lake region of northern Utah.
Proportions range along the Wasatch Front from 90 percent in Utah County to 64 percent in Salt Lake County.
And in Summit County, where the bulk of people live in the resort-and-arts community of Park City, just over 50 percent of residents are LDS, said Bennion, who added that his figures do not distinguish between active and less-active members of the LDS Church.
*****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
LDS population
Percentage of local population that is LDS.
SOURCE: "Churches and Church Membership in the United States 1990," Glenmary Research Center/Atlanta
Beaver 79.7
Box Elder 84.1
Cache 85.5
Carbon 69.9
Daggett 73.9
Davis 74.2
Duchesne 76.1
Emery 81.3
Garfield 85.5
Grand 31.3
Iron 77.2
Juab 85.7
Kane 68.3
Millard 89.2
Morgan 90.9
Piute 70.9
Rich 98.6
Salt Lake 64.3
San Juan 39.6
Sanpete 91.6
Sevier 87.3
Summit 52.8
Tooele 62.3
Uintah 62
Utah 89.9
Wasatch 84
Washington 78.5
Wayne 86.1
Weber 64.5