Alarm over rising rate of Saudi spinsterhood

The number of unmarried Saudi women over 30 reached 33.45 percent in the last 10 years, or 1.52 million of the total population of 4.57 million women, local media reported on Sunday.
Reports quoted Mohammed Al-Abdul Qadir, head of the Wiam Family Care Society, who stressed the need for a “community engineering,” based on field studies, to be carried out by experts in different areas.
For more than two decades, Saudi society has encouraged the concept of mass marriages in a bid to fight the growing rate of spinsterhood, the expert said.
According to Abdul Qadir, although these initiatives are individually or voluntary-oriented, the time has come to streamline the ideas through an overall social reform, taking into consideration development plans in different parts of the Kingdom.
The family expert said marriage organizers still focus on the regulatory side of the issue.
He called on the experts to look for community-based solutions to ensure the stability of marriages by providing job opportunities and creation of joint ventures for the couples through initiatives undertaken by both private and public sector companies.
The 7th forum of Saudi Family Care Societies, scheduled for next month in Dammam, will explore some 30 new researches and initiatives in this regard, he pointed out.