As far as guys learning and then going into the working world later- this isn’t always “just as good” as going out to work younger, or at an age more comparable with the rest of the world.
My dad works for a large financial institution which has hired (over the 20+ years he’s worked there) many, many frum people in his department. Nearly all of them were hired before their 30th birthdays, and most of those were more than ten years ago. His job is hi-tech, and companies don’t want guys in their thirties in those sorts of jobs. They barely want the seasoned older guys who at least have experience, forget about the ones who are straight out of a quickie program. It’s all about youth in the industry, especially as you can get even younger and even cheaper employees in India. It’s nearly impossible to get a job in that kind of a company now straight out of a degree program above age 24-25, and it shows in the frum population at the company. While I can only give first-hand information about my dad’s company, he says that many of his friends say the same about their fields.
In addition, every year you work technically translates to more money you are worth. If you have two thirty-five-year-old men working at the same company in the same position, but one’s been doing it for two years and one’s been doing it for eight, the one doing it longer is getting paid more. He’s also going to be promoted first. All of that is money that is sorely needed in this ridiculously expensive frum society, and holding people back from the workforce is depriving them of years that could really help the financial securities of the wives and families for whom they signed a kesuba promising to support.
People have been saying that the kollel system has been predicted to die and has still survived, but it survives only through brute strength. It is ripping up homes and causing shalom bayis problems and agmas nefesh, both among beleaguered parents and parents-in-law who overextend themselves to support their children beyond their means or among the married children themselves who either are thrust into the world of kollel without fully understanding the sacrifice or are supported on an artificial, unsupportably high standard of living and then can’t sustain it once they are no longer being “helped.”
I think that kollel is a wonderful idea. I would have no problem if my future husband were to choose that lifestyle, as long as first we had a frank discussion about it and how we would support ourselves, with no expectations from society as far as standards or our parents as far as money (beyond, should it be the case, what they should choose to give). Just like so many things in the frum community, it is once it turned into a “system” (like the shidduch system, the seminary system, etc) that it turned sour.
(Wow. I’ve been gone from here too long. That felt good. 🙂 )