The gender gap widens...

[_subgenius]

Women stay and men drift off. If the Church was a fast food franchise, management would be seeking women to staff Priesthood positions.

another incorrect assumption, but at least it is consistent with the OP.
The article/study also notes that women may be joining the church at a greater rate than men.....and children were not included in survey.

More importantly is that the article notes that the survey is from 1990 through 2008 we see an increase of Mormon adults to the tune of about 27% from the 1990 number as well as the percentage of adults to the whole remaining about the same.
http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/ ... t_2008.pdf
The full survey is titled "American Religious Identification Survey"

As i said before, and the facts seem to confirm, the OP is ill-conceived with little regard to nothing more than a cynical opinion for matters mostly unknown.

http://newsroom.LDS.org/facts-and-stats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_i ... es#History

[_subgenius]

...Granted, a huge portion of the church's active membership resides in Utah, so it should still be a concern....

huge portion? i would like to see the data that supports that conclusion.
roughly 1.4 million members in Utah, 14 million members worldwide....soooo....10% of church population in the state of Utah...not likely a huge concern, mainly because the cause is yet to be known, like the referenced article states, could be that women are joining faster than men (not men leaving faster than women).

[_Drifting]

...Granted, a huge portion of the church's active membership resides in Utah, so it should still be a concern....

huge portion? i would like to see the data that supports that conclusion.
roughly 1.4 million members in Utah, 14 million members worldwide....soooo....10% of church population in the state of Utah...not likely a huge concern, mainly because the cause is yet to be known, like the referenced article states, could be that women are joining faster than men (not men leaving faster than women).

I think the crucial word that Peggy uses is 'active'...

subgenius - do you believe the report's findings that in Utah adult female Mormons are increasingly outnumbering male Mormons?

subgenius - why do you think that is happening?

subgenius - what do you think the can do to change or accommodate the trend towards a dominantly female active membership?

[_subgenius]

I think the crucial word that Peggy uses is 'active'...

yes, and i duly noted that "data" surely exists to support the conclusion....or its just an opinion/speculation.

subgenius - do you believe the report's findings that in Utah adult female Mormons are increasingly outnumbering male Mormons?

i believe that the current study shows an increase, but there is not enough data for one to conclude it is a trend. I do believe that the number of females have made a gain in recent times. My speculation is that this is from women being able to make their own decisions more freely and so whereas they may have been denied access to the church by their apostate husbands or from bygone social convention, they are now able to join and are doing so at a greater rate than men.

subgenius - why do you think that is happening?

see above, that is what i think. what i know is only the numbers provided by the study.

subgenius - what do you think the can do to change or accommodate the trend towards a dominantly female active membership?

Dominance has not been proven, and trend towards dominance has not even been proven. Additionally, it is an illusion to consider Utah as some sort of isolated segment of the population.
But if we were to assume a hypothetical of "what if" women outnumbered men? Who is to say that there is not a ward or a stake that has such a proportion?
The hypothetical is nonsensical and is a shallow attempt at pointing out the obvious. The church is currently a patriarchal system. It may be possible that it could become a matriarchal system, or something altogether different, that is not for me to say - but the "evidence" currently supports the system in place.
Arguably one could say that even though we have a patriarchal system, it is titular. As they say "if mama ain't happy then nobody happy"

[_Drifting]

But if we were to assume a hypothetical of "what if" women outnumbered men? Who is to say that there is not a ward or a stake that has such a proportion?

I think the imbalance between men and women exists today in the majority of wards.
Certainly in every single ward in the stake where I am from has predominantly more adult female members than adult males.
Statistically, as reported by the Church, there is a problem with retaining youth once they turn 18. In the articles published by the Church there is a recognition that they are losing significant numbers of 18 to 30 year old single members to apostasy or full inactivity. This outflow of lifeblood seems to me to be more the menfolk disappearing. I do believe the Church recognises this as a specific and significant problem that is facing it.

Hence the push for marriage market wards and Conference exhortations about the need to get married sooner rather than later.

[_subgenius]

But if we were to assume a hypothetical of "what if" women outnumbered men? Who is to say that there is not a ward or a stake that has such a proportion?

I think the imbalance between men and women exists today in the majority of wards.
Certainly in every single ward in the stake where I am from has predominantly more adult female members than adult males.
Statistically, as reported by the Church, there is a problem with retaining youth once they turn 18. In the articles published by the Church there is a recognition that they are losing significant numbers of 18 to 30 year old single members to apostasy or full inactivity. This outflow of lifeblood seems to me to be more the menfolk disappearing. I do believe the Church recognises this as a specific and significant problem that is facing it.

Hence the push for marriage market wards and Conference exhortations about the need to get married sooner rather than later.

The referenced study from the OP seems to contradict most of the conclusions you are making here.
Citations?

[_just me]

Women stay and men drift off. If the Church was a fast food franchise, management would be seeking women to staff Priesthood positions.

If a ward or branch doesn't have enough men to fill the local leadership positions they 'ship in' Priesthood from elsewhere - Missionary couples, Stake High Councillors etc. When these run out perhaps they will look to Deacons, Teachers and Priests to run the wards before letting the women loose...

I posted the above paragraph partially in jest.
But thinking about it. When push comes to shove the Church would probably choose a 12 year old Deacon over an adult single woman in terms of trusting them with a leadership role.

This is exactly what they do. Well, minus the resorting to Aaronic PH holders. They shift ward boundaries and call people from "stronger" wards on "missions" to be the leadership in the ward/branch that lacks leadership.

But, never forget that women and men are equal in this patriarchy!

[_MsJack]

...Granted, a huge portion of the church's active membership resides in Utah, so it should still be a concern....

huge portion? i would like to see the data that supports that conclusion.

According to this site, the church claims 1,823,623 members in Utah. That's a much, much higher concentration of the church's membership than you'll find anywhere else in the world. For comparison, Idaho has about 399k members; Arizona 368k members. Mexico has 1.2 million and Brazil 1.1 million. Everything else is lower than that. In May of 2011, the church reported a total 14,131,467 members on the rolls at the end of 2010. That means roughly 13% of the church's claimed membership and 31% of the U. S. membership resides in Utah.

But I didn't just say membership; I said active membership. Activity rates are a little harder to assess because the church doesn't publish that information. However, it's pretty well recognized that the activity rates in the United States are better than the activity rates in the rest of the world. This page contains a round-up of estimates from sociologists about LDS activity rates.

Let's just go with Armand Mauss' estimate and assume that every state in the United States (including Utah) has a 50% activity rate and the average for countries outside the United State's is 25% (which strikes me as pretty darned generous). That means there are 5,001,219 active members in the world, and 911,807 (18%) live in Utah, with no other area in the world having so high a concentration.

Now you may not regard 18% of world active members and 31% of U. S. active members as a "huge portion," but I do.

not likely a huge concern, mainly because the cause is yet to be known, like the referenced article states, could be that women are joining faster than men (not men leaving faster than women).

Just because the cause is unknown does not mean there's no need for concern. After all, I assume that most active Mormon women in Utah would like to get married in the temple. And right now, statistically, there aren't enough active Mormon husbands for them.

The church is currently a patriarchal system. [SNIP] but the "evidence" currently supports the system in place.

Wrong. There's a wealth of evidence showing that patriarchy is harmful to men, women, and marriage.

[_Aristotle Smith]

If the church leadership were to consider a gender gap a sign that women need the priesthood they would already have it.

By that I mean for most of the developing world 60% women and 40% men's attendance would be a huge improvement and the church would be celebrating in the streets with temporary lifting of Word of Wisdom prohibitions. Yes, it would be that huge.

On my mission we would have killed for 40% of the branch to be males attending. However, south of the border, 2 male missionaries, the branch president, and the elder's quorum president often make up the entire male adult population attending a branch. After that it's all women and children.

[_SteelHead]

If the church leadership were to consider a gender gap a sign that women need the priesthood they would already have it.

By that I mean for most of the developing world 60% women and 40% men's attendance would be a huge improvement and the church would be celebrating in the streets with temporary lifting of Word of Wisdom prohibitions. Yes, it would be that huge.

On my mission we would have killed for 40% of the branch to be males attending. However, south of the border, 2 male missionaries, the branch president, and the elder's quorum president often make up the entire male adult population attending a branch. After that it's all women and children.

Because that is what is easy to baptize. In a game driven by numbers, dunk them all. Who needs leadership anyway ;) ? Batiza ate um saco de poiera!