In the past 15 years, the North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) has been experiencing a shift in generational demographics. The Baby Boomer generation surpassed senior generations as the NAD’s largest age group in 2013, according to a General Conference (GC) survey reporting age demographics of SDA members in North America.
Members from senior generations — those born before the year 1946 — are declining in numbers due to increasing age. The percentage of members belonging to the Millennial generation is also decreasing in the NAD. Generation X and younger generations — those born after 1994 — fluctuate in membership percentages.
According to Monte Sahlin, vice president for Creative Ministries of the Columbia Union Conference of the SDA denomination, fluctuation could be due to survey method differences between the GC and the NAD.
These results differ from the NAD’s 1980, 1989 and 1996 demographics. During that time period, members from the Greatest Generation, also known as the World War II generation, started declining in membership percentage, and the Silent Generation, the generation between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, fluctuated in percentage. However, the combined percentage of the World War II and the Silent generations was still greater than the Baby Boomers’ increasing numbers. Along with the Baby Boomers, Gen Xers increased in percentage each year. Data was not gathered for Millennials and younger generations during that time, as most members from those generations were not born yet.
I created a timeline of the NAD’s generational demographics from 1980 to 2018. The 2008 and 2018 NAD survey percentages and the 2013 GC survey percentages were provided in a presentation by Sahlin to our Interactive Journalism class. The 1980, 1989 and 1996 percentages were obtained from Sahlin’s 1998 report, “Trends, Attitudes and Opinions in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.”
Click the image below to view full details of the timeline. The timeline is interactive, so make sure to click each tab for more information.
