Home › Forums › Shidduchim › Statistician Dr. Charlie Hall's analysis of the marital age gap data › Reply To: Statistician Dr. Charlie Hall's analysis of the marital age gap data
I did some “arm-chair” calculations and found that (ignoring all other factors) if boys go off the derech more than girls, say for argument sake 2% of boys vs. 1% of girls per year starting at say 15 years old, this compounds up by the time they reach their early twenties to produce exactly the crisis that we are seeing now.
Moreover, this could explain why the scenario seems to be reversed by the chassidim. Perhaps their girls go off more than their boys?
Remember, it is not a factor of large numbers going off (although there probably are). It is a factor of more of one gender going off than the other compounded over the teen years.
If I am correct in this, then the solution will not be social engineering to change the age when boys get married, as this will only succeed in changing the age distribution of the single girl population.
The solution will be to create a more tolerant society in which our children are given room to find their place.
Obviously, this is just a theory and would need to be substantiated by hard data which is in short supply! What it does do however, is show that the existing “age-difference” theory is flawed in that another factor can (at least mathematically) be shown to produce the same phenomenon.
Just saying!