How Mormon Missions Have Changed for Women

In recent decades, Embry and Radke-Moss pointed out, it has become more acceptable in Mormon culture for women to serve missions.

"There became almost a climate, the more women were going," Embry said, "and men and women hoped to marry returned missionaries because they shared that experience."

In 2012, after almost 50 years of the age-21 limit, President Thomas S. Monson announced women would be allowed to serve full-time missions at 19.