Quote:
Originally Posted by Requiem
Getting better but still problematic. An average single/student ward is comprised of 57% women compared to 43% men. Men love to hang out at the mingles to graze and have deep seated fears of commitment. My hypothesis (faith based SU) is that the older a man gets, the less likely he is to marry. Would love empirical evidence to subtantiate.....
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Here's the biggest issue I see. People in general are marrying at a later age than in the past (both men and women) and the church is no different. We can say that's good or bad, but it's a fact whether we like the trend or not, and therefore we should try to deal with it. The church does alright addressing the needs of the YSA's and even the older (40-45+ year olds), IMO, but is awful at serving the middle group (late 20s and 30s). The age 30 cutoff for singles wards is arbitrary and silly. In reality there is no difference between a single adult in their late 20s or early 30s, so why the cutoff there? Maybe it made some sense back in the day when more people married young and most YSA wards were comprised of mostly people in their early 20s. But outside of college towns that's not what most singles wards really look like anymore. Especially in metro areas you have a lot of young professionals and fewer of the really young ones who are off at school. In today's culture it doesn't really fit anymore and I think it would make more sense to make the distinction between college-type wards for 18-25 or so and then make a separate group for ages 26 to 40. When people leave college and go into the workforce is where the real change comes in life and that's where the line should be, IMO.