For years, our community has been debating on the best way to solve the shidduch crisis. At the heart of the issue is the belief that because of massive population growth, boys getting married at an older age and girls getting married at a younger age is causing a massive disparity in the number of shidduchim available to girls, thus leading to the shidduch crisis. But today, I saw some data dug up by an incredible Jewish reporter by the name of Shlomo Schorr, who is one of the best, if not the best, frum journalist on the scene today. The data he unearthed really speaks for itself, but let’s go through it. In a tweet, Shlomo noted that one figure that really stuck out to him is the ratio of boys being born to girls being born in Lakewood since 1990. His data shows that every single year since 1990 besides for two, there have been 125-200 more boys than girls being born to frum Jewish families in Lakewood. Been taking a deep look at the birth rate in Lakewood over the past two decades and while there is a lot of data there, one figure that really stuck out was the ratio of boys-girls. Every year since 1990 besides for two, 125-200 more boys are being born than girls. pic.twitter.com/rjY6TdSJM0 — Shlomo Schorr (@OneJerseySchorr) November 29, 2021 He writes that he will “leave the shidduch crisis discussion to the experts, but the argument that older boys marrying younger girls is the biggest contributor to the crisis seems to [be] less significant with these numbers.” He adds that he’s aware that Lakewood doesn’t account for the entire Jewish community. Now, he might not be a shidduch crisis expert, but I consider myself to be somewhat of an askan in this area. For years, I have been pushing for boys to get married at a younger age so as to alleviate this terrible burden that weighs on our bnos yisroel. But I have to question my whole stance right now. Is it really true that there are so many more girls than boys on the shidduch scene? The numbers provided by Schorr would suggest that there is likely some other factor at play here. Something doesn’t add up. And we need to get to the bottom of it. Aharon P.  Lakewood, NJ NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN. DO YOU HAVE AN OPINION YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE POSTED ON YWN? SEND IT TO US FOR REVIEW. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

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