KUWAIT CITY, Jan 16: The emerging and continuous COVID-19 pandemic and various social factors have increased rates of spinsterhood among girls in the Arab world, said the Arabic Gulf Research Center. A report published on the center’s official websites on Sunday said Arab girls have registered the highest rate of spinsterhood among women in the different parts of the world, due to the unstable circumstances caused by the spread of the Coronavirus and its impact on the social and economic levels. Education, self-affirmation and assistance of families participated in increasing the rates of women’s reluctance to get married, the report added.

Restrictions imposed on the Arab societies because of the spread of the Coronavirus since 2020, deterioration of the living conditions of the Arab individual, unemployment, poverty and inflation are all factors that increased young people’s rejection of marriage, the report pointed out. The study explained how the pandemic created a status of depression and isolation caused by fears of infection especially with the growing death toll, stressing that these factors affected the decisions and idea of marriage in the past two years.

Addiction to the internet and the social media had caused a negative impact on the young peoples’ view about marriage, by increasing their fears of failure and divorce. The report concluded by explaining how other factors such as wars and conflicts had negatively affected economic and social conditions that led to an increase in the age of marriage in the Arab world in general. (KUNA)