I referred to the study finding how many girls were still unmarried. Since you did not study the boys, all you have is the conjecture- but no study. I don’t see how you can disagree with that.
Sorry, I thought you were referring to a study which demonstrated that there were more younger girls than older girls. But since you agree that that’s true, and that we start with the “pool” containing more girls than boys, the assumption would be that it remains that way unless either more girls leave the pool, or more boys join it. Again, it seems the opposite.
So you concede that more boys are leaving the pool than girls? So that means that there are also more girls because boys are leaving the pool? So then even if we solve the age gap, there will still be more boys than girls?
Very likely. That doesn’t in any way obviate the need to close the gap. L’moshol, if a family needed to spend $50,000 anually on living expenses but was only earning $48,000, we wouldn’t suggest that they give up a side job with an income of $5,000 (part of the $48k) since they’re anyhow not making ends meet.
Had the reverse been true, and there were more girls leaving the pool and/or more boys leaving, then age gap might counterbalance that and we could keep it. That, I believe, is not the case, however.