Posted by Thorwald on November 12, 2007 at 23:36:09
Taken from here: I was reading a statement by Claire Borowick where she talks about how many SGAs have remained in the group. I decided to look into the numbers a little more.
Below is a excerpt of her statement: Claire Borowik wrote: "Statistics do not bear out Lattin's assumptions regarding Family-born second generation members. To date as of July 2007, 14,506 births have been recorded in the Family. Six-thousand one hundred and twenty-one of those born to the Family, in other words 42 percent, remain members of our fellowship. Additionally, of those who have exited the group, nearly 160 have rejoined over the past three years."
Here is some rough math: I took the data we have on xFamily.org and the new data from Borowick and found the following:
In 2001, they reported 13,503 total births in TFI. In 2007, they reported 14,506 total births in TFI. So, in six years, they increased by 1,003 births; an average of 167/year (which is close to the last data we have in 2001 of 169).
Borowick claims that 42% (or 6,121) of the total remain members (not sure if full-members or if it includes associate-members).
If we only consider those over 18 as actual members, then all we have to do is sum the total number of births since 1989 and subtract them from the total (6,121). The total number of births since 1989 is 5,683. That means that only 483 SGAs (those born into TFI) over 18 remain in the group. That is not an impressive number at all!
Another way of looking at these data is to take that 483 number and divide it by the total number born before 1989 (8,821). That gives us only 5.48% of those over 18 still in TFI.
