> The primary forces driving the growth are sizable nuclear families (five or more children on average) and an average retention rate (Amish children who join the church as young adults) of 85 percent or more.
I used to assume it was close to 100%. Where are these 15% of people who leave the settlements as adults?
The 85% number seems to have been quoted for at least a decade or so, cited in some cases I can find to a 2013 book [1]. Here's a summary via a 2019 open-access book chapter about leaving the Amish [2]:
> Contrary to the persistent myth that they are dying out, the Amish population in North America continues to grow at a rapid pace. Numbering over 330,000 in thirty-one states and four Canadian provinces, the Amish population doubles every twenty years (Young Center 2018; Donnermeyer et al. 2013). While over 60 percent of the Amish still reside in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, home to the four largest Amish settlements, population pressures are increasingly resulting in out-migration to areas where land prices are more affordable. Because the Amish do not actively seek converts, this population surge is a result of two major forces—large family sizes and a high retention rate. Though family size differs by affiliation, Amish families still average approximately five children. At the same time, the retention rate is at an all-time high. Fully 85 percent of Amish youth get down on their knees in front of their congregation and pledge to uphold the Ordnung, or unwritten code of conduct, of their local church district (Kraybill, Johnson-Weiner, and Nolt 2013).
[1] Kraybill, D.B., Johnson-Weiner, K.M., and Nolt, S.M. (2013). The Amish. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[2] McConnell, D.L. (2019). Leaving the Amish. In: Handbook of Leaving Religion, ed. D. Enstedt, G. Larsson, T. Mantsinen, pp. 154-163. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004331471_013
I'm not based in the US, so I'm wondering whether people meet ex-Amish in the general course of their lives? Do they go on to lead otherwise ordinary modern lives and have office jobs?
You pretty much have to go to them as they keep to themselves, so most people don’t run into them organically.
I had a friend in high school whose mother was ex-Amish though. That was kind of interesting. They were just regular folks but it was essentially like her mother had immigrated from the old world and truly left all her family behind. I don’t know if leaving is always a permanent severance from the community but I guess in this case it was.
Speaking anecdotally, I’ve known quite a few Amish of various stripes who left and became Mennonites, or joined the “English” world entirely. The Amish aren’t cloistered from the world like monks, so there’s plenty of interactions on the social edges that convince some to leave despite the very strong social pressure against it. One interesting dynamic is that in some areas women are more likely to have “modern” skills — accounting, management, even CAD/CAM expertise — so young Amish women can often find their way in the broader world more easily than men.
I used to assume it was close to 100%. Where are these 15% of people who leave the settlements as adults?