Amish: Remain or Leave?

Gender and Defection

9

In general, those persons who choose to leave the Amish tend to be
male. Although this has been the case historically, Table 5 indicates
that this tendency has actually increased during this century. Among
the children born in the 1920s to the 1940s, more than one-third of the
defectors were women; but by the 1960s fewer than one-fifth were
female.

TABLE 5.PERCENTOFDEFECTIONBYGENDER
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Year of BirthPercent of Defection by Gender
Defectors inWomenMen
Age Cohorts
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a_{1920-1929100 (137)49 (67)51(70)}
a_{1930-1939100 (234)38 (88)62 (146)}
a_{1940-1949100 (245)40 (97)60 (148)}
b_{1950-1959100 (246)30 (75)70 (171)}
b_1960-1969c_{100 (102)18 (18)82(84)}

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N of cases in parentheses.
a_{Data taken from 1980 Indiana Amish Directory.}
b_{Data taken from 1988 Indiana Amish Directory.}
c_{This cohort includes many young people in their late teens and early twenties}
(835 out of 2818) who have not made a membership commitment. Therefore, the
analysis includes only those people who have left their parental homes.

Males have always had more opportunities than females to explore
the outside world. They typically have access to buggies at age 16, and
they are permitted more liberties in testing the limits of Amish

society.²⁴This exploration of the world may include the purchase of a
car and settling for a time in a town apartment. For many of these young
men, employment is off the farm. Factory employment in particular
has made more cash available for major purchases such as automobiles.
Thus, indirectly, factory work may have an impact on the increased
rate of defection among Amish males.

At this critical period in life non-Amish influences may have a
powerful impact on Amish youth. Males are not only more likely to
make forays into the non-Amish world; they are also likely to change
their appearance almost entirely, giving up Amish garb and grooming



24_{. For a discussion of the rationale behind the testing of the boundaries of the Amish}
community, see Hostetler's Amish Societyand Kraybill's The Riddle of Amish Culture.