Many Were Drafted but Few Were Called: Missionary Service During the Vietnam War

In a previous post (here), I looked at the number of missionaries called during WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam War to build evidence for my hypothesis that the Iraq War was a factor contributing to the decline in missionaries called from 2003 to 2008,   The decline in the numbers of missionaries called during WWII and the Korean War as well as statements from church leaders provide some support for the hypothesis but the cause is direct, the draft reduced the number of men available for missions.  The evidence provided by the Vietnam War is not as conclusive as that provided by the earlier wars (See graph.  Periods of peace are shown in blue, and war, in red).  The number of missionaries set apart jumped at the outset of the war in 1965 but grew slowly until the draft ended in 1973.  The explanation for the difference between the impact of the draft on missionary numbers between the Korean and Vietnam Wars lies in the implementation of a quota system that allowed missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to take advantage of IV-D deferment for ministers and divinity students. 

Response the President Monson’s Announcement Growing

President Monson’s October 2012 announcement that the Church was changing the age requirements for missionary service has been met with enthusiasm and faith.  Many 18 year-old men and 19 to 20 year-old women who are now eligible to serve and have submitted missionary applications.  Excitement and enthusiasm invite inquiry.  Will sisters comprise a larger percentage of missionaries?  Will the surge in missionary numbers be temporary or will they produce an absolute increase in the percentage of youth serving missions?  There are more technical questions such as where will the church place so many missionaries and will the time between receiving a call and beginning service lengthen due to the outpouring of applications?  In this post, I will use updated data from YouTube that includes February to attempt to answer these questions.

Many families post YouTube videos of their missionary opening their missionary calling.  If the same percentage of families post their callings after the announcement as prior to it, the videos are a good sample of the actual response to the announcement by youth who speak English and with sufficient technological means to record and post videos to YouTube.  With those cautions in mind, I will present my findings. 

 

A Gift of Cognitive Ability?

Devin Pope wrote a nifty paper (“Benefits of bilingualism: Evidence from Mormon missionaries,” Economics of Education Review, September 29, 2006) that explored the theory that learning a second language increases cognitive ability.  He summarizes the paper in the abstract

Several studies have argued that learning a foreign language has the potential to increase the general cognitive ability and test scores of students. In this analysis, the Mormon missionary program is used to test whether or not students who were assigned to learn a foreign language performed better in college. The results indicate that the increase in GPA due to serving a Mormon mission is the same for students that were assigned to a foreign-speaking mission relative to students that were assigned to an English-speaking mission. These results are robust to controlling for factors such as choice of major and class load.

Pope’s findings are at variance with accepted theory and this adds to the importance of his findings but I found the experimental design the most interesting aspect of the paper.  Missionaries are assigned a location and language. They start and end at the same institution, BYU.  It is difficult to imagine a better natural experiment and this adds credence to his statistical results.  Learning a second language did increase academic performance but no more than serving a mission in a missionary’s native language.  My non-scientific conclusion is that God loves all his servants and blesses them. 

Household Stability and Cohabitation

22 … and he (the devil) leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.

The household is the most basic institution of modern society and while many types make valuable contributions to society, only one that based on the physical union of woman and man propels society through generations. The intertemporal nature of this physical union may create a societal interest if some types of households produce better results, a more stable environment for raising children, and that stability results in children more able to contribute positively to society as they mature.

Cohabitation, living together in a long-term relationship as if a married couple, is one type of household.  While some couples that enter this living arrangement may not view it as a step towards marriage, many do.  If a relationship seems promising, why not take an important step toward marriage by living together for a while as a test run?  Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of “The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter — and How to Make the Most of Them Now,” explains that cohabitation has become a more common type of household (“The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage”).

Cohabitation in the United States has increased by more than 1,500 percent in the past half century. In 1960, about 450,000 unmarried couples lived together. Now the number is more than 7.5 million. The majority of young adults in their 20s will live with a romantic partner at least once, and more than half of all marriages will be preceded by cohabitation. This shift has been attributed to the sexual revolution and the availability of birth control, and in our current economy, sharing the bills makes cohabiting appealing.

Fifty Eight New Missions

On Saturday February 23, 2013, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the creation of 58 new missions increasing the number of missions by 16.7% and bringing the total number of missions to 405.  Elder David F. Evans of the Seventy, executive director of the Missionary Department, said that the new missions are sustainable after the current wave of missionaries subsides.  This suggests that missionary numbers will be at least match the increase in the percentage of missions.  Using 57,000 missionaries as the base number prior to the announcement, a 16.7% increase in missionaries implies a sustainable missionary force of more than 66,500 missionaries.  A 100% increase in the number of Sisters and a 2% increase in Elders would result in a sustainable missionary force of 65,500.  Estimates of new missionaries will become more accurate as eighteen year-old graduating seniors submit their applications.

The Impact of WWII and the Korean War on Missionary Work

Missionaries Serving in War and Peace: 1960-2011

In “War and the Missionary Force,” I suggested that war in Iraq and Afghanistan affected the number of missionaries serving as well as the more frequently identified events such as raising worthiness standards for missionaries and demographic trends of falling birth rates and secularization.  I used the graph “Missionaries Serving in War and Peace: 1960-2011” as evidence.  The horizontal axis measures time beginning in 1960 and continuing until 2011, and the vertical axes, the number of missionaries serving at year end.  The blue segments of the line are years of peace and the red segments, years of war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  The graph is suggests that these wars may have drawn young men from missionary service into the military service, but in the case of the War in Iraq, the timing of the war coincides almost perfectly with raising the worthiness standards.  Did the war cause missionary numbers to fall or was it the increase in standards or both? 

Missionaries Serving in War and Peace: 1938-1960

Examining periods of war without concurrent changes in missionary standards helps separate the impact of the two events.  The second graph covers the period surrounding World War II and the Korean War when worthiness standards were constant.  The horizontal axis measures time beginning in 1938 and continuing through 1960 and the vertical axis, the number of missionaries set apart, a slightly different variable than the number serving used in the first graph.  Clearly, the number of missionaries set apart declined in response to World War II and the Korean War.  The student manual, “Church History in the Fulness of Times,” describes how these wars impacted missionary and members in Europe beginning with the Nazi’s political triumph in 1933, the evacuation of missionaries from Europe starting in 1938, to the drafting potential missionaries.  The impact of WWII is summarized in the following paragraph

Pioneer Heritage

For many members of the Church, these words (the faith of our fathers) bring to mind valiant pioneers who abandoned the comfort of their homes and traveled by wagon and on foot until they reached the valley of the Great Salt Lake. I love and honor the faith and courage of those early pioneers of the Church. My own ancestors were living an ocean away at the time. None were among those who lived in Nauvoo or Winter Quarters, and none made the journey across the plains. But as a member of the Church, I claim with gratitude and pride this pioneer legacy as my own.  (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, April Conference, 2008)

My last missionary companion was man of great faith, serving a mission only a year after his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As we walked or biked along the dusty, rocky streets of Rawson, Argentina we occasionally discussed whether the pioneer history of the Church as presented in hymns and lessons was a heritage of members in our branch.

He believed that being separated by time, space and culture the pioneer experience was little understood.  I thought that learning of the faith and commitment to the gospel of the pioneers would would create a natural bond, a legacy. 

In “The LDS Church in Mongolia,” Briana Stewart gives a brief and interesting account of the Church in Mongolia.  Within the article is a picture of Mongolian youth on a Pioneer Trek.  The Pioneer Trek has greater intensity than the traditional lessons that I believed would create a legacy.  In Mongolia, Argentina, and everywhere in between, treks will transport our youth to a different time, bridging the distance between their lands and the plains and mountains of the American West, letting them glimpse at the faith and character needed to gather in Zion, strengthening their testimonies by bonding them to our common legacy.  They will understand that their personal journey as Saints is the same as that of the pioneers.