Having just been inspired by two posts (this one and that one) I started to tweet out some statistics. But then a couple other things occurred to me, and it all seemed better suited to a short blog entry.

1. I’ve queried a lot of agencies – including all the bigs – and every single one has % single males in single digits. Virtually all (with a few holdouts) are under 5%.
2. The one large agency I don’t have good stats on in is YWAM. And initially I thought it would prove a stellar exception. But the more anecdotal evidence I have, the more I theorize that YWAM’s short-term DTSes will have a larger % single male, but its long-term missionary force will not.
3. That said, virtually all agencies are also, by a vast majority, made up of married couples. So single females are also few in %.
4. One reason for the low % of single males is almost certainly apathy. But another reason is that they have more at-home ministry options than women do. And another reason for the low % of singles, I think, is that a lot of single applicants get encouraged to get married before going on the mission field (I’ve heard that time and again). And it’s hard to place singles on the field. For example, I was talking the other day with a mission leader who spoke of the difficulty of placing single women. They need to be in a team, or at the very least two single women together. It’s very hard for singles to be on their own in a place.
5. I don’t have good statistics on short-term deployments. Anecdotally, I find they are generally the same as long-term deployments, but I think that’s simply from a shortage of data.

I am talking with some other folks about further research into current conditions and causes of this trend. It’s a serious issue, because there are many places where single women can’t go, and married couples are less inclined due to the dangers to family…