DY. Another problem with the Age Gap Theory is that it does not account for the fact that the population has been growing for three generations and the norm has always been for boys to marry younger girls, just ask your parents and grand parents.
I do accept that the age gap may be the problem and I do accept that OTD may not be the problem.
What I am trying to demonstrate is that without a thorough study being done and actual hard data being gathered and analysed, anyone’s guess is as good as anyone else’s. This should not be a case of whose theory sounds best. It should be a case of the facts prove…
Also, in terms of my remark that OTD may be gender reversed by the chassidim, I may be 100% wrong. It is just a theory, which I do not have hard facts to substantiate. Likewise, Ivory probably does not have hard data to refute me with. As such, we end up theorising.
The long and the short of it, in my view, is that any intervention that is tried, even with the purest of intentions and genuine concern, is almost certainly doomed to fail if it is not grounded in very thorough research.