I wouldn't count 80 year old men out as recruitment targets for suicide bombing.
Traditionally, the rate of suicide among men only goes up as they get older and in the US is at ~29/100k/year after 65 years. If a group were well-funded they could make this an attractive offer to take care of families for folks who had no assets to pass on. The have less to look forward to and thus less to lose/more to gain. This already happens in other ways besides suicide bombing.
I think the perception that most terrorists are young single men demonstrates less about their willingness to blow themselves up than what they're willing to trade blowing themselves up for. Young single men, especially poorly educated ones, are generally dreadfully bad at cost-benefit analysis and planning for their futures. Terrorist groups tend to be incredibly poorly funded without state sponsorship and then it all depends on which state.
Tangentially, all[1] decisions are economic decisions.
But this is exactly what I'm talking about. If the direct cost of sending a suicide bomber goes from "transportation" to "transportation + $2,000,000", there will be less of it.
Certainly there are additional complexity issues and those work to the benefit of law enforcement. However, there are some significant costs as well.
How confident really, is one that you aren't going to find 80 year old men willing to give their last few years of life for what they believe, money aside, or do we care whether their spouses are still alive?
The other real major cost is the social cost. If we do start making really fine-grained decisions regarding appearance, married status, etc. then we risk essentially ensuring that Americans are not equal before our government and that's something that is really hard to put a price on, particularly given the history of racial issues in the US.
Traditionally, the rate of suicide among men only goes up as they get older and in the US is at ~29/100k/year after 65 years. If a group were well-funded they could make this an attractive offer to take care of families for folks who had no assets to pass on. The have less to look forward to and thus less to lose/more to gain. This already happens in other ways besides suicide bombing.
I think the perception that most terrorists are young single men demonstrates less about their willingness to blow themselves up than what they're willing to trade blowing themselves up for. Young single men, especially poorly educated ones, are generally dreadfully bad at cost-benefit analysis and planning for their futures. Terrorist groups tend to be incredibly poorly funded without state sponsorship and then it all depends on which state.
Tangentially, all[1] decisions are economic decisions.
[1] most