My own 2 cents on the situation:
15-20-25 years ago there was no “gap”, because girls and their families were not desperate to start dating the day after high school graduation and boys did face social pressures to “sit and learn” until they were 23 before they started dating.
Once it became “the norm” for a bachur to “sit and learn” (and in many cases all they are doing is warming a seat) and a stigma was attached to a boy who didnt, boys and their parents, figured the best way to “fit in” was to pack off to eretz yisroel for a year or 2 of “learning”, then back to their home country to “sit and learn” for several more. Societal stupidities took many boys out of the dating pool.
Concurrently, we became very “frum” and decided that post high school, girls only did certain things. Speech therapy and teaching became the vogue. Of course, going to college was looked down upon, so girls attended fast track, 8 months or less, programs and were done and had degrees and ready to get on with their life before they were 20.
If we allowed the numerous girls who wanted to, to continue their education to do so without attaching a stigma to them. If we allowed those boys who are ready to get on with their life at 21 because sitting in yeshiva 3 sedarim a day is not conducive to their growth as yidden, let them finish college and get married at 21-22 we would have plenty of “younger boys” to date a pool of girls that has suddenly become smaller, by choice.
We have created our bed, and now we have to sleep in it. I applaud groups like NASI for trying, as misguided as I feel they might be, but I dont believe anything will change until we wake up and realize that all we have done is create an unsustainable situation.
What will happen, I’m sure, is that a small percentage of girls will start dating later, while a larger percentage of boys will start dating younger because they no longer feel pressured to do what everyone else is doing.
Of course, we have to do away with the fallacy that every girl must marry a rosh yeshiva and that every boy will be the next rosh yeshiva, because all we will have accomplished is unshackling boys who dont want to be there 3 sedarim a day from their chairs in the beis medrash (which harsh as it sounds is not a bad thing for those bachurim).
Please give me 5 minutes to put on my flak jacket before you respond and call me an am haaretz, a rasha, a masis (or worse, if thats possible). After you do so, please offer up your own take on the situation and provide your own proposal.