Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
How’s what going – the brains – they are fine… I think
Seriously squeak what is your issue do you not believe there is an issue, do you think the issue should be handled differently, or do you have general issues with the structure of the community and find NASI to be a convenient punching bag?
Recently Intercepted
Top Secret
Internal NASI Communication
Hello99
The relevant number is the growth in the absolute birth rate – that is the increase in total number of births. I did not mean the growth in the birth rate per thousand in the population. Sorry for the misleading terminology a more appropriate term would have been “Increase in the number of births” as the term rate is generally used in relation to a fixed number of people.
Hello99
The issue is not based on the fact that birth rates are rising but on the fact that they are high. A rising birth rate does add to the problem but it is far from the primary issue.
In the event birth rates are dropping at a significant enough rate, in a decade or so our approach to the issue will have to be reevaluated. We will have plenty of time to debate that issue.
With regard to the issue of reproductive medicine I will state that I think you are wrong on a number of points however I don’t think this is the place to debate it as it has only marginal relevance to the issue at hand.
Hello99
If you have anything concrete (or even anecdotal) indicating that the growth rate is dropping I would love to see it. In any event I would find it hard to believe that the drop is so precipitous as be significant enough to eliminate the issue. From the data I have seen (class size etc)the reverse seems to be the case.
If you are right then in 10 or so years we will not have a problem – a different albeit important point.
Once we are getting down to it another relevant point that has to be taken into account is the tremendous advances in reproductive medicine over the past ten or so years.
Hello99
I posted a clarification re the definition of growth rate on the binah shidduch forum.
Hello99
I believe we are confusing two different types of growth rate. There is population growth rate (PGR) that is the growth in the overall population. This is what is referred to in the CIA statistics. This is calculated by taking the total population at the beginning of the period subtracting the population at the end of the period and dividing by the pop at the beginning.
The number relevant to us is not the population growth rate but the growth in the birth rate. this number is calculated by taking births from one year subtracting the previous years births and dividing by the previous years births. As I am sure you can imagine the second number will tend to be significantly higher than the first.
Helllo99
I do believe that the growth rate is that high and likely even (4%-4.5%) higher based on work done by other people(using a stricter definition of yeshivish)I used the Avi Chai study bec it is readily available.
Re the 5% more boys born the relevant question is how many more marriageable boys than girls are there at the age 20. As boys have a higher mortality rate particularly in the teenage years, the ratio of boys to girls at age 20 is closer to 103:100 (according to the cdc if my memory serves me correctly – It has been a while since I looked it up). Presumably in the frum community that ratio is higher due to a lower rate if high risk activities. There is also the morbidity rate which is also higher among boys. The point is that 5% at birth is not 5% at marriage. Taking everything into account I would the number at about 8%.
I believe the 13% AZ mentioned was based on an actual tally of girls still single at the point where there are relatively few corresponding boys – you can ask him to be sure.
Regardless of the precise number and reason for it lowering the age gap will help.
Hello99
I believe these issues have been dealt with in previous posts. The two avi chai studies have different numbers for the same grade (ie 2nd grade in ’00 and 7th in ’05) the numbers that were used came from grade to grade growth in each individual study. Do you really think that the growth rate in the community is only 2%.
Cherry Bim
I am not sure what your issue is. Have you read anything on the issue but are not sure what the source of the numbers are. If so what numbers do you have a problem with.
SJS The death rates (per 100,000) for whites are as follows boys ages 0-1 640 deaths 1-4 31 5-9 13 10-14 13 15-19 87 which sums up to 792 per 100,000 among females the numbers are 515,23,12,13,37 for the same age groups.
As you can see the total death rate for under 20 is less than 1% so a 105:100 disparity could not possibly be closed by age 20.
With reagrd to your other point I don’t think I understand what you are saying. Noone is saying that all boys should marry girls two years younger than themselves what we are saying is that the communities average age gap has to be reduced.
PM I am not sure what you mean by small schools. Do you mean new scools with few grades or do you mean schools with all grades but few students.
Regardless you did not respond to any of my issues. If your theories are correct (ie centrist conversion and new school discovery) than we would see those numbers reflected in the grade by grade breakdown. In addition you did not explain why you consider the sudy to study growth more credible than year to year especially when there seem to have been at least some scool reclassification.
Re the blip averages taken over 17 years are not a blip. Yes in some years the growth rate is lower and in some it is higher. The average and therefore the expected value over time is about 3.5% (or 3.2).
PM
You wrote “These new small schools discovered in the second survey only have younger grades and account for the disproportionate increase relative to the older classes.”
You are right and they are part of the communal grwoth rate.
PM
The study seems to indicate that at least one scool was redifined from centrist to MO. This would bolster your point that some of the decline in in the centrist bacame yeshivish. However as I mentioned there does not seem to be any increase in the numbers of students in the classes present in both surveys. Bottom line sice the two sureveys did not rigorousely maintain the same classificaitons using them to derive a growth rate is not ideal.
I am not sure what you mean “The only hardnumbers provided so far ..” we are debating whether my numbers (grade to grade growth) are more accurate or your numbers (census to census growth with a centrist conversion). You may disagree with me but I don’t think it is fair to say that the nunmbers provided weaken my case. In fact you have not even adressed the grade to grade growth rate you simply provided a speculative alternate set of numbers.
PM, Chaverim
I don’t think I get your explanation. Could you please run through the numbers for say 10 years (if possible maybe paste a spreadsheet) so we can see what you mean
PM
There is other evidence for the growth rate in the frum community. There have been studies dome based on the growth rate in a number of Bais Yaakov schools as well as a sibling study (derinving the growth rate from the average numbers of children per family) Those have been done on a more stricly defined Yeshivish community and come up with a higher growth rate. due to the limitations of this forum there is not much I can show you so the Avi Chai is the one we work with
PM
Take a look at the definition of centrist and tell me how many you think picked up one day and started to go to yeshivish schools – if anything they would go to MO schools. You do however bring up a valid point – maybe part of the growth is due to immigration not natrual growth. This is true when comparing overall two population datasets taken at different times (such as comparing the two studies). When the growth rate is derived from the ratio of younger to older members the reason for the growth rate becomes irrelevant. The important point is that there are more 10th graders than 12th graders.
If more chools where discoved by more experrienced survey there would consistently be more 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the second study than there are 1st 2nd 3rd graders in the first (as they are the same class) this is not the case (at leasr with regard to yeshivish)
I do not have any evidence that smaller schools were missed I just mention it as a possibility that seemed to make sense to me.
PM
The number given in the study for Yeshiva schools over five years is a little over 14%. This comes out to a growth rate of about 2.7%.
I calculated the growth rate numbers by comparing the # of first graders with the number of 12th graders. Ff done that way the growth rate comes out to about 3.2% in this study and if my memory serves me right a little more in the previous one.
I do not think the numbers obtained by comparing the studies is completely accurate. When one compares the numbers of children the same class (eg 1st grade in the ’00 and 6th in the ’05) between the two studies the numbers are off by about 1% one way or the other. For this reason I think a more acurate picture is obtained my comparing the grades in the same study.
Another factor that may cause the growth rate to be underestimated when using school data is the fact that very small schools with only a few grades are more likely to be missed. These shools would be expected to have the highest population growth as they are composed of the youngest families.
I am not sure where you got the 1:1 ratio at age 20. In your experience do 5% more men than women die before age 20. The Centers for Disease and Control keeps pretty good nmbers on death rates by age and gender. If you would like it in tabular form so it can be used in a spreadsheet you can go to the disastercenter web site (google it) on the bottom there in the small letters there is a link for US cause if death data. go to that page and follow the link to Number of deaths and death rates…
The information is also available on the CDC web site.
assuming a 3% OTD number with a 3:1 ratio we would have 2% more girls than boys . My issue with using this is that intil we have some form of hard numbers we are just guessing.
Re unmarrigable – You may be right that OTD/substance abuse is significantly more common among however phsychiatric conditions are significanlty more common among women. obviously most people with phsychiatric conditions can and will marry but it is another factor that somwhat cancels out the OTD issue.
RE the math – with a population on this size it is expected that there will be peaks and dips in the numbers. However there is an average growth rate that can be extraoliated from the dataset (with a certain degree of confidence). No one is saying everyone should marry x number of years older or younger than themselves. This would cause siginificant problems due to the year to year variations in the population. All we are saying is that due to the fact that the average growth rate is about 3.5% a community wide average age gap of 3 years is going to cause problems.
You can go to Israel’s central burea of Statistics website they have the ratios broken down by district and religion. In ’07 they ranged from 102.2 to 106.7 per 100. I remember seeing something more specific but I do not remember where right now.
Regarding going off the derech I think we have to define the term. If it means completely leaving the orthidox community and that number is 6% and the ratio is skewed very heavily in the direction of boys then you are right we have an even bigger problem.
Since I have as of yet not been able to obtain any hard numbers on this I can only go by my own experience and that of people I have spoken to.
It should be noted that GOTD is only one reason people become unmarriageable. There are others, some of which pertain disproportionately to girls.
Re the math all I meant is that you don’t take the boys reduce them by six percent and then add four percent. You first add four percent then you reduce it by 6%. It does not make such a big defference when you are only talking about one year but if you keep going it makes a big difference.
Re the ratio of men to women – Women do not outnumber men until about age 60. You can look at the CDC’s website they have death rates broken down by gender.
SJSinNYC
Re the ratio of boys to girls the ratio ranges between 103 and 107 makes per female. Among non hispanic whites in the us the rate is about 105 to 100. Yes it is “Possible” that for some reason orthodox jews have a ratio skewed towards women but in the absence of any evidence I don’t think this is something we have to be concerened about.
Incidentaly there was a study done in Israel examaning the ratios among “Charedim” – the numbers where more or less the same as white americans.
The ratio of boys to girls is declining but it is in the order of 1/10th of a percent over decades – not a factor that need concern us.
Re going off the derech it is important to make the distinction bet GOTD as it appllies to schools and GOTD as it applies to marriage. In my experience – correct me if I am wrong – most boys who GOTD end up marrying whithin the orthodox commmunity. To the best of my knowledge there really isn’t any hard evidence re the ratio of boys to girls going off the derech.
One note about the math – when calculating the growth rate taking into account boys GOTD the 6% is subtrated after deriving up the the ratio of boys to girls.
Just Smile
Where did you get the 10% figure from. Even if 10% don’t graduate from yeshiva IMHO most marry within the community so they would not affect the ratio of girls to boys.
If you do have any hard numbers on the number of boys that go off please let me knowI am very intersted.
Squeak
I don’t know what you are basing your theory about non religous people going to schools classified as “yeshivish” due to the higher quality education. Even if you are right unless we assume they do not marry into the yeshivish community, they still contribute to the growth rate. As far as the grwoth rate is concerned ot makes no difference whether it is due to natrual growth or “Imigration”.
I would however dispute your contention that there is a wave of children entering the yeshiva system due to the quality of education. If you have any evidince for this I would love to hear it (really).
There are a number of other ways the growth rate has been estimated (granted each with it’s own flaws) such as counting numbers of siblings and extrapoliating from the chareidi growht rate in EY (estiamted at about 5% although it is partially due to immigration).
Squeak
I imagine this is the crux of your argument.
“People die. People get sick. People have disabilities, physical and mental. People can be loners. People can abandon their community. People from outside a community can join. A community can impose harsher standards on certain people than on others”
We know the rate at which people die. We have a pretty good idea as to the rate they get sick. Granted Boys die, get (physically with mental illnesses women seem to have a higher incidence)sick and disabled at a faster rate than girls however at those ages the it is a marginal factor.
One can speculate on any number of theories however until without evidence it is simply speculation. I have spoken to a number of people to try to find out if boys become unmarrigable at a higher rate than girls due to undesirable behavior but I was not able to come up with anything.
When given the choice between a theory with a significant amount of evidence behind it, one whose mechanics you don’t seem to dispute, and speculation, I would go with the former.
Even if you are right that the reason for the disparity is something else reducing the age gap would alleviate the problem.
By the way the Avi Chai Day School study is in the publications section of their web site. The studies themselves are in pdfs in pop up windows which may be why you where not able to find it in a search.
Anon
where did you get this data from. According to the CDC the ratio is closer to 104 to 100 in the age group you are referring to. If what you where saying was true that would mean that 5% more boys than girls die or emigrate before age 25 not a very likely proposition.
ames
In every developed society that does not artificially control birth rate the birth rate has gone up dramatically over the past hundred or so years. This is due to many factors including reduced maternal mortality, reduced infant mortality, a dramatic increase in life expectancy, earlier weaning due to better nutrition and the development of infant formulas, and fertility treatments.
In the frum world the general trend is the further to the right community is the higher the birth rate. As there has, over the past several decades, been a general shift to the right it is reflected in the birth rate.
Anecdotally it would seem to me that people are marrying earlier. When I compare people I know in my grandparents, parents, and my own generation that definitely seems to be the trend. If anyone has any hard evidence on this point I would love to hear it.
squeak
Why the insults
No I am not saying the growth rate was 3.5% for the past 100 years. Among other things about 65 years ago the jewish people suffered from significant negative growth. I do believe that over the past 60 years or so the jewish community as well as many others underwent a significant increase in its growth rate due to advances in medicine,nutrition, as well as certain cultural changes.
With regard to you point about the skipped three years I don’t really understand what you are getting at. I was not saying that all boys and girls used to marry at the same age until they decided to “Institute” a three year age gap. That like almost every other social convention evolved slowly.
Stop requesting e-mails…Please review the rules of the CR prior to posting again
YW Moderator-39
Jaymatt
Sorry I wasn’t clear
To the best of my knowledge there is no chazal that one should marry a younger woman. The chazal you are referring to “ches darga vesav itsa” is refering to status not age I believe that is the context as well as what the meforshim say. All I was saying was that if one wants to make a case that this is referring to age I think that argument is weak.
With regard to shoving 18 year olds to the chuppa. I was not saying that all I meant is that when one is ready whenever that may be one should not let superficial societal constraints stop him. I don’t think any of the gedolim you mentioned would disagree with that.
There are a number of reasons this issue has become more significant and prominent in recent years. They include an increased growth rate and lower maternal and overall mortality.
When calculating the ratio of boys to girls we do not go to a particular town and count how many boys and girls there are. There are more effective and easier ways of doing it.
I do not know why you think I am “Putting aside shalom bayis to make shidduchim” All I am saying is we have an issue that we have to deal with. If you think that having boys start dating a year earlier will significantly impinge on the shalom bayis then by all means say why you think so.
Jaymatt
If your point is that for us as a community it is worth it to allow a number of girls to go unmatched due to the fact that an age gap of this magnitude is necessary I don’t have anything to say. Your proof from chazal is rather weak. However chazal do say that at 18 one must start to look for a wife and they do not say noce things about one who is not married by 20. In addition the Shulchan Aruch says that one who is older than 20 and not married is mevatel a mitzvah every day.
In order to show that there is a problem we need two things the average age gap and the growth rate. Which one of these do you have a problem with? The theory can be bolstered by looking at the ratio of older girls to boys in shidduchim databases however this is not necessary.
Although it would be nice to have more complete data a ten year global census is both impractical and not necessary. Statistical derivations are adequate.
As for your point about statistics I assume you advocate the use of statistically derived medical data as well as pharmaceuticals whose efficacy has been statistically validated. I imagine your point is that statistics are subject to manipulation.
If you think I am manipulating numbers to make my point please tell me why you think so. I don’t want this to be true any more than you do – however if it is hiding our head in the sand is only going to make it worse.
Not sure why my last post didn’t make it.
The avi chai studies are posted in their web site
There are a number of ways to estimate the growth rate of the yeshivish community. There have been studies done in EY that put the growth rate at close to 5% although a portion of that is probably due to “Immigration”.
One can also count the average number of children per family and extrapolate the growth rate from there using some readily available formulas. The difficulty as with many population studies is defining the community. The more narrowly it is defined the higher the growth rate.
DD
As you can see from the site I posted above the total death rate for White boys is about 132 per 100,000 before age 24. The rate for girls below age 20 is about 600. This is quite a distance from the 5% needed to eliminate the birthrate disparity.
I am not saying this is the only cause of the problem. It may be that more boys go off the derech to the point they cannot marry into the community. However at this point this is simply a theory without evidence. Even if this where the cause the problem would still be ameliorated by reducing the age gap.
squeak
Noone want the age gap to be the issue. It is an extremely painful issue and yes it is demoralizing. But unless we recognize it it is only going to get worse.
To this point other than offering what is IMHO a rather speculative alternate theory, you have not in any way addressed the fundamentals of the issue.
squeak
You have not addressed the issue. Do you agree that the growth rate is somewhere near 3.5% and the average age gap is between 2.5 and 3.5 years. If yes then how can these “inputs” not cause a problem. If not which one do you disagree with.
All you have done is presented a theory (without evidence) as to why the problem would be shifted.
As for the ratio of boys to girls born it seems to be a consistent 104.9 to 100 or so you can get the exact numbers by year on the CDC web site. You can also search for “sex ratio” for a discussion of the ratio of boys to girls born.
Boys do die at a faster rate but it takes until about age 60 for girls to catch up.
Here is a site with death rate by age and gender.
http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/Death%20rates%202005.html
I believe the information comes from the CDC and is also available on their web site but I don’t have time to look right now.
Squeak,
I happened to have done some modeling my self. There seem to be to relevant inputs, the growth rate and the average age gap. I assumed the growth rate in the “Yeshivish” community is about 3.5 to 4 percent and the average age gap is somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 years. Which one of these inputs do you propose to change and by how much.