Marry Young / Shidduch Crisis

[S209]

They went through the alumni classes of a bunch of beis yaakov’s and came up with some pretty grim numbers. As was mentioned by the convention even if most get married by the time 10 years passes they have gone through gehenom and are no longer the same girls they once were.

This is crazy. From my (male) shiur we had 22/25 married by 26 (~3 years in shidduchim). All(!) were married by 28. I’m sure this isn’t an anomaly. The female 5 years in shidduchim equivalent of age 24 still has 25% unmarried..

[cmey]

This is crazy. From my (male) shiur we had 22/25 married by 26 (~3 years in shidduchim). All(!) were married by 28. I’m sure this isn’t an anomaly. The female 5 years in shidduchim equivalent of age 24 still has 25% unmarried..

Garry Barnett does his homework. These numbers are real and they are horrible.

[yuneeq]

This is crazy. From my (male) shiur we had 22/25 married by 26 (~3 years in shidduchim). All(!) were married by 28. I’m sure this isn’t an anomaly. The female 5 years in shidduchim equivalent of age 24 still has 25% unmarried..

Are you comparing your high school class or beis medrash shiur? Otherwise it may just be a case of survivorship bias.

[yuneeq]

They wouldn't even be satisfied with the person they dated

Many because that's what they are taught to feel

[cmey]

My high school graduating class was 95% married by age 26 but that was a while ago.

[yerushabubby]

One very serious issue is the attitude of older bachurim regarding the age of girls they are willing to go out with. 

A single woman that I know was waiting for her significantly older sister to marry before considering shidduchim.  Once her sister got married, she reached out to a shadchanit regarding a bachur that had been suggested two years earlier, who she had heard was still single.  The boys response?  He is looking for someone younger, so he would be more likely to have a large family.  At the time, she was about 25, and he was about 30.

[yuneeq]

One very serious issue is the attitude of older bachurim regarding the age of girls they are willing to go out with. 

A single woman that I know was waiting for her significantly older sister to marry before considering shidduchim.  Once her sister got married, she reached out to a shadchanit regarding a bachur that had been suggested two years earlier, who she had heard was still single.  The boys response?  He is looking for someone younger, so he would be more likely to have a large family.  At the time, she was about 25, and he was about 30.

Waiting for a sibling to marry merits it's own discussion. The things I've seen...

[yesitsme]

My thoughts on "top" girl or boy.
For a boy to be "top", he needs to be able to sit in yeshiva, capable of learning, and while he's there, daven with a minyan.  And if he's really special, he has good midos too.
For a girl to be "top" she's got to have good looks and midos.
So it's easier to be a top girl than a top boy.
Then the Bais Yakov system ranks full time learning as the model for a top boy. So she's only looking for a top boy.
So it makes the numbers game worse.

For a boy to be "top", he needs to be able to sit in yeshiva, capable of learning, and while he's there, daven with a minyan.  And if he's really special, he has good midos too.
please reverse the order

[cmey]

Just because they are the ones hurt does not mean it was those poor choice. Someone else's poor choices can be hurting them.

Well we can focus on past history, or we can focus on the path forward. Let’s say for arguments sake that too many boys go off/ MO and too many girls want middle of the road guys. We can address this either  by 1) dealing with the rate of attrition among the boys 2) educating some of the girls to be good MO wives as a goal 3) encourage girls to marry BTs and fringe boys and build them up aka Dina and Eisav or 4) we can send the boys to E”Y a year earlier to mirror the age gap of the Israeli and European system that is presently working for them (and they have plenty of attrition among the boys in that system as well as an even more right wing view of marrying a learning boy as a goal).

The bottom line is we have over 25% of our bnos yisroel suffering greatly for years regardless of the root cause. Which of the above solution are most likely to be eorkable from a hashkafic, pragmatic, practical point of view.

I think it’s a no brainer.

[Euclid]

Well we can focus on past history, or we can focus on the path forward. Let’s say for arguments sake that too many boys go off/ MO and too many girls want middle of the road guys. We can address this either  by 1) dealing with the rate of attrition among the boys 2) educating some of the girls to be good MO wives as a goal 3) encourage girls to marry BTs and fringe boys and build them up aka Dina and Eisav or 4) we can send the boys to E”Y a year earlier to mirror the age gap of the Israeli and European system that is presently working for them (and they have plenty of attrition among the boys in that system as well as an even more right wing view of marrying a learning boy as a goal).

The bottom line is we have over 25% of our bnos yisroel suffering greatly for years regardless of the root cause. Which of the above solution are most likely to be eorkable from a hashkafic, pragmatic, practical point of view.

I think it’s a no brainer.

While I agree with the general gist of this, there's a huge difference between MO and a boy who's working (even full time). And if our community treats them the same then that's arguably more important to fix than the age gap.

[cmey]

While I agree with the general gist of this, there's a huge difference between MO and a boy who's working (even full time). And if our community treats them the same then that's arguably more important to fix than the age gap.

Are they mutually exclusive? Fixing the system so working boys are value would arguably take more time and would be far more difficult to pull of pragmatically in a reasonable time frame to help as many girls as possible.

[aygart]

I think it’s a no brainer.

If all of the anecdotal assumptions are true.

[YitzyS]

This is crazy. From my (male) shiur we had 22/25 married by 26 (~3 years in shidduchim). All(!) were married by 28. I’m sure this isn’t an anomaly. The female 5 years in shidduchim equivalent of age 24 still has 25% unmarried..

Two points: First, it's not correct to measure by "number of years in Shidduchim," because nobody said that girls should be in shidduchim at 19. If all girls get married at the same age as boys, we would not consider it a crisis. It's only considered a crisis if girls cannot get married at all.

Second, pointing to a specific class or grade is anecdotal. In my grade, of about 50 or so boys, there are still 5 boys not married (10 percent) and we are older than Garry Barnett's highest age demographic (which was 29).

[yelped]

While I agree with the general gist of this, there's a huge difference between MO and a boy who's working (even full time). And if our community treats them the same then that's arguably more important to fix than the age gap.

And this glosses over the difference between Chassidesh and Yeshivish communities (hint, it's not necessarily the age gap, that is very likely just the symptom of the real issue).

[aygart]

And this glosses over the difference between Chassidesh and Yeshivish communities (hint, it's not necessarily the age gap, that is very likely just the symptom of the real issue).

That difference has greatly diminished every since the Rosh Yeshiva of BMG became a Rebbe.

[cmey]

And this glosses over the difference between Chassidesh and Yeshivish communities (hint, it's not necessarily the age gap, that is very likely just the symptom of the real issue).

We have two possible causes to account for the disparity between the litvish/ chassidish situation; the age gap or the way working boys figure into the society. Let’s take a look at the Israeli Litvish community that has no Shidduch crisis. The working boy stigma is even more pronounced. The 3-4 year age gap isn’t there. Isn’t that telling?

[yos9694]

Before talking about the shidduch crisis, there is a problem with the theoreticians of this shidduch crisis. They are too married to their own creation and closed off to hearing any opinions or analysis that doesn't fit their narrative.

If the issue was a few percentage points of additional girls, how would that explain girls not getting calls? Getting married is 1:1 but calls/dates is not.

The underlying data source is terribly flawed. The numbers are only approximately related to our population, and with no attempt to adjust for events between birth and adulthood.

The number of unmarried girls at age x should be reconcilable to the number of excess girl births, but it is not. Not in numbers or in percent.

I can (and have) continue to list dozens of counterpoints to this birth rate theory. This has been going on for >10 years. The key takeaway is that it is not a satisfactory source of causation from a statistical view. You'll notice there are never any statisticians involved, only laypeople saying statistical words.

There is absolutely a shidduch crisis though, and IMO it has 2 causes:
1) personal choices, no need to elaborate
2) number of girl cohorts in shidduchim vs number of boy cohorts. This is a vastly different problem from a slight imbalance in the birth rates, and very much connected with the personal choices issue.

As long as the focus is on the wrong problem there is not much chance of developing a good solution.

[ckmk47]

Fixing the system so working boys are value would arguably take more time and would be far more difficult to pull of pragmatically in a reasonable time frame to help as many girls as possible.

But changing that attitude would be good for society going forward and would fix the problem long term.  Quick fix is good temporarily.  Root cause fix is permanent.

[cmey]

Before talking about the shidduch crisis, there is a problem with the theoreticians of this shidduch crisis. They are too married to their own creation and closed off to hearing any opinions or analysis that doesn't fit their narrative.

If the issue was a few percentage points of additional girls, how would that explain girls not getting calls? Getting married is 1:1 but calls/dates is not.

The underlying data source is terribly flawed. The numbers are only approximately related to our population, and with no attempt to adjust for events between birth and adulthood.

The number of unmarried girls at age x should be reconcilable to the number of excess girl births, but it is not. Not in numbers or in percent.

I can (and have) continue to list dozens of counterpoints to this birth rate theory. This has been going on for >10 years. The key takeaway is that it is not a satisfactory source of causation from a statistical view. You'll notice there are never any statisticians involved, only laypeople saying statistical words.

There is absolutely a shidduch crisis though, and IMO it has 2 causes:
1) personal choices, no need to elaborate
2) number of girl cohorts in shidduchim vs number of boy cohorts. This is a vastly different problem from a slight imbalance in the birth rates, and very much connected with the personal choices issue.

As long as the focus is on the wrong problem there is not much chance of developing a good solution.

I don’t think you need to be a statistician. Basic math should suffice. You are forgetting the cumulative effect. (Calculating this on the fly so correct me if my math is off.)

Let’s take Lakewood births and do the math. Let’s assume we are starting from a clean slate and that every single boy makes it through the system and marries one of the girls.

If we take the girls from 1998 and the boys from 1995 (the 3 year age gap), after every girl gets married there are 75 who don’t have any boys for them (526-451=75)

For the 1999 cohort it is 59 extra (590-531) PLUS the 75 girls from the previous year.

The 2000 cohort is an additional 139.

2001 yields an additional 145.

2002 girls cohort yields an additional 216.

By 2003 not only are there an excess 282 girls (922-640=292), there are still 634 girls left over from previous years so there are actually 1.556 girls vying for only 640 boys. ( In the chassidish world boys marry girls older than them, it’s only the Litvish where boys have their pick that it’s rare.)

And Lakewood of the 1990’s accounted for only a fraction of the frum population. Multiply the numbers times 10 and you get an idea of the magnitude of the problem. 15,000 girls vying for 6400 boys. The only way you are getting a date in that kind of environment is if you somehow stand out. Money. Yichus. Parents went to the same bungalow colony. Chance encounters. Etc. a perfectly average girl with nothing to differentiate herself is likely going to find herself being relegated to the thousands of excess girls. Is it any wonder that thousands of girls aren’t getting dates?

And this model is actually far more rosy than things are in actuality because it starts with a clean slate, ignoring the cumulative pile of unmarried girls already in the mix from previous years. And we are assuming a perfect world where every boys is marriage material and actually gets married to one of the girls in the pool. Any additional boys that are unmarriagable due to falling through the system etc. only takes what is already a calamity and adds to it.

[avromie7]

Before talking about the shidduch crisis, there is a problem with the theoreticians of this shidduch crisis. They are too married to their own creation and closed off to hearing any opinions or analysis that doesn't fit their narrative.

If the issue was a few percentage points of additional girls, how would that explain girls not getting calls? Getting married is 1:1 but calls/dates is not.

The underlying data source is terribly flawed. The numbers are only approximately related to our population, and with no attempt to adjust for events between birth and adulthood.

The number of unmarried girls at age x should be reconcilable to the number of excess girl births, but it is not. Not in numbers or in percent.

I can (and have) continue to list dozens of counterpoints to this birth rate theory. This has been going on for >10 years. The key takeaway is that it is not a satisfactory source of causation from a statistical view. You'll notice there are never any statisticians involved, only laypeople saying statistical words.

There is absolutely a shidduch crisis though, and IMO it has 2 causes:
1) personal choices, no need to elaborate
2) number of girl cohorts in shidduchim vs number of boy cohorts. This is a vastly different problem from a slight imbalance in the birth rates, and very much connected with the personal choices issue.

As long as the focus is on the wrong problem there is not much chance of developing a good solution.

I picked your post to quote, but this sentiment was repeated many times throughout this thread.

The reason boys get more dates is because they get redt more shidduchim. If 50% of shidduchim redt are nixed by the boys, they will inevitably get redt 2x as many shidduchim. It also means a boy who would be in the same position as the girls who don't get dates either can't complain because he gets redt many shidduchim even if he says no to all of them (back to the personal choices) or he can choose which girls he wants to give a yes to.

In short, there may be just as many boys not going on dates, but they have no right to complain because they are the one saying no.