I theorize that the percentage of people participating in short-term missions who are single and male would be higher than the % single male in long-term missions.

This seems to make sense as single males would likely be more interested in doing a “gap year” of missions (e.g. YWAM DTS) as a precursor to ministry in the States; it’s a “resume booster” (sorry for the cynicism); there are opportunities for short-term during college; etc.

But I also theorize that the % single male in missions will not be higher than % single female.

An initial data point from @missiontrips seems to be in line with this: their surveys are consistently 28% male, 72% female (but there isn’t any marriage data attached to that).

Data from @boejeff: 25% of their short-termers are single male. (Thus, 75% are females.) He says very few short-termers with them are marrieds.

Others are digging into their data further.

If you do short term trips and you can tell me what % of your participants is single male it would be helpful. Comment below or send it to me via twitter (@justindlong).