Today, the Australian government released a breakdown of the religious affiliation of the Australian population per the 2021 census data. A total of 57,868 people self-identified as Latter-day Saints on the 2021 census constituting approximately 0.23% of the Australian population. The Church reported a total of 155,383 members in Australia as of year-end 2021. Thus, only 37.2% of Church-reported membership self-affiliated on the 2021 census. In contrast, the 2016 Australian Census reported 60,864 Latter-day Saints, or 41% of Church-reported membership at the time. There have generally been steady increases in the number of self-affiliated Latter-day Saints on the census in Australia during the past 35 years (35,500 in 1986, 45,200 in 1996, 53,100 in 2006). However, annual Church-reported membership growth rates have decreased considerably since the mid-1980s from 3-5% for most years in the 1980s to 2-3% in the 2000s and 1-2% for most years since 2015. The decrease of approximately 3,000 self-reported Latter-day Saints in Australia is probably best explained by slowing membership growth rates during the past five years compounded by member attrition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, youth who do not remain active into adulthood, children of record who are not baptized prior to age 9, adults who leave the faith, deaths of active members, and probable decreasing numbers of children of record increase.
The 2021 census numbers also provide interesting insights into the ethnicity of Australian Latter-day Saints. These data indicate Australian natives constitute 72.4% of Christians in Australia, whereas Australian natives constitute only 58.3% of Latter-day Saints in Australia. The most striking demographic finding is that only 2.73% of Australian Christians are from Oceania (outside of Australia), whereas 29.4% of Australian Latter-day Saints are from Oceania (outside of Australia). This supports data I have collected from hundreds of returned missionaries and local members in Australia that indicate Polynesians constitute a disproportionate percentage of Latter-day Saints in many Australian congregations. Furthermore, local members have reported that language-specific congregations for specific Polynesia peoples (i.e., Tongan and Samoan) often have significantly higher member activity rates compared to general English-speaking congregations in Australia. There has also been an increase in the number of language-specific units in Australia during the past five years for Samoan and Tongan speakers. Since year-end 2016, four new Samoan-speaking and two new Tongan-speaking congregations have been organized, whereas there have been one Samoan-speaking and one Tongan-speaking congregation discontinued. In contrast, there have been a total of 15 new English-speaking congregations in Australia created and 20 English-speaking congregations closed during the same time period.
The 2021 Australian Census data can be downloaded here.
