Reply To: Statistician Dr. Charlie Hall's analysis of the marital age gap data

I just completed my reading of Dr. Schick’s new census. It is enormously interesting. Some of my takeaways were that virtually all Chareidi population growth of young families is occurring in Lakewood, Brooklyn (and a little bit in its surrounding areas such as the Five Towns) and Rockland and Monroe counties in New York. This is to the detriment of virtually all the rest of the U.S., which apparently is experiencing a declining or stagnant Orthodox population rate. Lakewood and Monroe are having an enormous population boom while Brooklyn is growing at a steady but lesser rate.

The largest, by far, Orthodox growth rate is coming from the Chasidic communities followed by a very impressive Yeshivish growth rate. The entire Chasidic growth is in NY and Lakewood. The Chasidim are an increasingly larger portion of NY’s Orthodox community. Satmar alone comprises of 12% or ALL (including non-Orthodox) Jewish children enrolled in Jewish schools in the U.S. Dr. Schick writes that the Chasidic community has remarkably low dropout rate that is pretty close to being statistically insignificant in contrast to what he terms as the sophomoric writers in the secular press and blogs who would give an impression of otherwise. The MO and CO student enrollment body is about the same or a bit higher in raw numbers than it was 15 years ago, which percentage-wise makes it a notable lower proportion of the community considering the enormous Chareidi growth rate. Reform and especially the Conservatives are quickly disappearing among the young generation.

The report is certainly well worth a good read.