Rumors of 19 year old females going on missions

[swampfrog]

Or a pocket watch.

I worry that the pocket watch will be the more likely...fashion diva.

[TripletDaddy]

I worry that the pocket watch will be the more likely...fashion diva.

How fast are her reflexes?

[Uncle Ted]

Less LDS women going to college since mission age change?

Gospel v gown




More Mormon women are going on missions. Fewer may go to university

[...]
The Mormon church promotes marriage as the perfect state of being and forbids sex outside it. The average woman in Utah, where Mormons are 60% of the population, marries at 24, younger than the national average of 27. The state also has the highest birth rate in America. The church stresses that women should be educated, but in practice combining children with full-time study is tricky. Some 70% of Utahn women start college, more than nationally, but less than 50% finish.


The result is that whereas in most of America women are more likely than men to have a degree, in Utah the opposite is true. The gap is particularly striking when it comes to higher degrees: just 8% of Utahn women between the ages of 25 to 64 have a master’s, doctoral or professional degree, a third less than the national figure. This gap shows itself in the workplace, too. The average woman in Utah earns 70% as much as the average man; across America, the figure is 78%.


It is too early to say whether the change in mission rules will affect female graduation rates. But since it was enacted, the number of young women studying at Brigham Young University has plummeted. In 2012, 14,500 female undergraduates were enrolled, almost as many as men. By 2014 that had fallen to 12,000. Whereas in the 1990s women made up 53% of undergraduates at the university, they are now just 45%. Academics are worried.
[...]

http://www.economist.com/news/united...-gospel-v-gown


Yeah, too early to tell. The plummet in female undergrads may just be the surge of LDS women going on missions.

It seems the University of Utah may be in trouble, however...

KAITLYN BOURNE, a 21-year-old student from Salt Lake City, Utah, recently returned from 18 months as a Mormon missionary in Atlanta, Georgia. Before going on her mission, she was studying a pre-medicine undergraduate degree at the University of Utah with a full scholarship. But when the Mormon church lowered the age at which young women can go on missions from 21 to 19 at the end of 2012, the idea of going consumed her. “It was a huge commitment, a really hard decision,” she says. “But after months of prayer and thinking about it, I realised I had to do it.”


Ms Bourne’s decision was hard—she had to give up her scholarship. Since returning, she has made plans to go back to university, but instead of resuming her pre-medicine course, she plans to study music at the Hawaii branch of Brigham Young, a Mormon university.

[Topper]

Wow that trend is disturbing.

[byu71]

Less LDS women going to college since mission age change?


http://www.economist.com/news/united...-gospel-v-gown


Yeah, too early to tell. The plummet in female undergrads may just be the surge of LDS women going on missions.

It seems the University of Utah may be in trouble, however...

I understand the change she went through. Before my mission I was on the college baseball team. When I got back I was content to play for the fraternity softball team and had no desire to play college baseball again.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Less LDS women going to college since mission age change?


http://www.economist.com/news/united...-gospel-v-gown


Yeah, too early to tell. The plummet in female undergrads may just be the surge of LDS women going on missions.

It seems the University of Utah may be in trouble, however...

I saw that this morning. But the whole article is based a few anecdotes. I think the new balance will be empowering for LDS women in the long run.

[byu71]

I saw that this morning. But the whole article is based a few anecdotes. I think the new balance will be empowering for LDS women in the long run.

Why? My inclination would be to believe the more that go on missions the more who will stick to the doctrine and for instance won't ask for the priesthood.

I haven't thought this through though as you may have and so I would like to hear your reasons.

[ERCougar]

Ha...I was just texting Solon about this. My accountant's daughter got home from her mission a little less than a year ago. Cute, smart, ambitious girl...who is now already married to this goofy directionless guy from her mission with no major at SUU. She no longer has any post graduate plans, which I can tell bugs her mom (my accountant), who is one of the more ambitious and capable women I know.
Just another anecdote to add to the pile.

[Solon]

I saw that this morning. But the whole article is based a few anecdotes. I think the new balance will be empowering for LDS women in the long run.

Uh, in case you didn't notice, this article is from the future (dated April 18).
The Economist is way ahead of us. The long run has already played out.

I imagine that the 45% number for female undergrads at the byu will come back up (I certainly hope it does) as that first exuberant wave of 19 & 20 year olds who left immediately reintegrates back into school.

But there will probably be some unintended consequences too.

Those numbers on on graduate degrees are damning.

[RC Vikings]

Less LDS women going to college since mission age change?


http://www.economist.com/news/united...-gospel-v-gown


Yeah, too early to tell. The plummet in female undergrads may just be the surge of LDS women going on missions.

It seems the University of Utah may be in trouble, however...

Out of the 1900 graduates at BYU-I 900 were male and 1000 were female. Of those about 1200 were married.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Why? My inclination would be to believe the more that go on missions the more who will stick to the doctrine and for instance won't ask for the priesthood.

I haven't thought this through though as you may have and so I would like to hear your reasons.

Lots of reasons. More leadership opportunities. More of a balanced role in shaping the church at this stage in their lives. More self-confidence.

From a recent article:

“Most Mormon feminists are what I would call moderates in that they are not actively militating for ordination or for other major structural changes,” said Professor Patrick Mason, who chairs Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. “They’re just saying, ‘We want more of a voice’.”

Mason said he thinks the Latter-day Saints is starting to hear them. He said changing economic conditions mean more women are becoming primary breadwinners and more men stay-at-home dads. There are more dual-income families. He said the church isn’t sealed off from larger society, and in response, it’s becoming less dogmatic about traditional gender roles.


But Mason thinks the most significant change is the way the church recently lowered the age for young women to become missionaries from 21 to 19. (Young men moved from 19 to 18.)


Lowering the age makes it easier for young women to go now because they won’t be in their final year of college, and are less likely to be in a committed relationship. Mason said, as a result, they’re signing up in droves.


“And they’re going to have a lot more leadership opportunities. Those women are going to come home, and I think that’s going to be the really interesting dynamic moving forward. What are those women going to expect in terms of participation in their local congregations?”


Neylan McBaine, a blogger and the founder The Mormon Women Project, a library of interviews with LDS women, thinks the cultural importance of this change can’t be overstated.


“These girls who have led other missionaries, both male and female missionaries, in the mission field, are going to come home and they’re going to have to assimilate back into their local practices,” she said. “And they’re going to bring with them a lot of best practices from their missions, and they're not going to put up with a lot of our current local practices.”

[Uncle Ted]

The gap is particularly striking when it comes to higher degrees: just 8% of Utahn women between the ages of 25 to 64 have a master’s, doctoral or professional degree, a third less than the national figure. This gap shows itself in the workplace, too. The average woman in Utah earns 70% as much as the average man; across America, the figure is 78%.

Those numbers on on graduate degrees are damning.

Yes, indeed.

Out of the 1900 graduates at BYU-I 900 were male and 1000 were female. Of those about 1200 were married.

Good hell... There might even be less women college graduates in Utah than Idaho.

[ERCougar]

Lots of reasons. More leadership opportunities. More of a balanced role in shaping the church at this stage in their lives. More self-confidence.

From a recent article:

I totally agree with this part of it--it puts women on much more equal spiritual footing, and that's a good thing. I just think the women need the same warning as the men about not marrying quickly, and I don't see that happening.

[Topper]

Yes, indeed.



Good hell... There might even be less women college graduates in Utah than Idaho.

I wonder if the design weren't to keep more LDS women home. BYU71 might be onto something.
Although Lebo's point might eventually percolate to the top, the immediate consequence of fewer LDS women in grad school may lead to a further impoverishment of LDS households as compared to non-LDS. It might also lead to fewer divorces because they can't afford to leave. Fun times ahead.

[byu71]

Lots of reasons. More leadership opportunities. More of a balanced role in shaping the church at this stage in their lives. More self-confidence.

I won't be around to see what the final effect is. Even 15 years down the road it still probably will be up for debate. I do agree with the equal footing. You went on a mission, good so did I and you are not in a class that I am not.

Will we now have women in the ward who are RM's and thus feel a dominant position to those fellows in the ward who did not serve. This whole thing seems to be about positioning.

I think in reality it is about opportunity. Does this opportunity mean the leaders are moving toward the opportunity for women to have leadership roles equivalent to males. I think not.