BP Totty: When you were in elementary school how many friends of yours had 10 siblings?
Nowadays it is quite commonplace. The single greatest factor that has changed in the last fifteen years is family sizes (B”H). That = population growth.
THIS is the reason the problem is so much worse now than it ever was.
HOWEVER, if the only significant age gap marriages (23-19) were from the wealthy 19 yr olds it wouldn’t be such a large problem. There just aren’t that many rich people. What is happening is that to many shidduchim are being redd between 23-19 when the boy could just as easily been redd to a 22 yr old.
Regarding parents who don’t have the means and feel pressured to come up with it. That is the same whether their daughter is 19 or 24. That phenomena would change if the numbers wouldn’t be so skewed. Boys will take what they can get.
PT: “The rest of us have no burden of proof (remember what we said about negative proofs)”
My goal here is not to win arguments. My goal is to raise awareness. Feel free to not bother asking and doing your research. However, if you are interested in helping alleviate the problem you might just choose do speak to them. If you did speak to them I think you might be interested in what they have to say.