WTP – actually in EY, girls get married older than in the US. In the US, you pretty much have to start dating at 18 or 19, whereas in EY, it is totally acceptable to wait until you finish school at 20. The boys are younger here (in EY, they usually start at 21, and in the US, they usually start at 23 or 24), but the girls are older and have less pressure to get married by a particular age.
I’m not saying there is no shidduch crisis in EY. I am just saying that it is less than the US, so I don’t see how you can blame the apt. issue on it.
I didn’t realize that it is harder to buy an apt today, but I still think it is hard to blame the shidduch crisis on that. For one thing, there is a shidduch crisis in the US as well. And for another, my impression (although I am not absolutely certain) is that in a lot of ways, things have improved. For one thing, the economy is way better than it used to be. For another, I was under the impression, that today it is more common that some of the responsibility of paying for an apartment is on the boy’s side. And for another, it is much more common and acceptable for chareidi boys to work than it used to be.
“I”YH they will get married, but maybe not to the high caliber boy they would have wanted..”
I have a hard time with that sentence. I always looked at marriage as being about marrying the right one for you, not about “caliber”. If he’s not the right one for you, then you shouldn’t marry him, even if there is no one else, and if he is the right one then you should marry him even if he is not “high-caliber”. At least that is how I always looked at shidduchim, but maybe I’m wrong.