It’s kind of funny watching you guys “interpret” my words while I’m no navi or anything and am B”H alive. I’ll try to help you out a little…
I wrote “Now here’s the monkey wrench: since generally the girls have the upper hand, they’re usually first. It’s not just a numbers game, but a quality issue…” In retrospect I should have written “but ALSO a quality issue”. It’s not one or the other. Meaning that even if there are the same number of boys and girls entering the market, a shadchan will hesitate to suggest a shidduch that’s imbalanced, so she’ll go to the better party first. Since there are more quality girls, the girl gets to answer first. (as an aside a confident shadchan will sometimes suggest to both parties at the same time). There is always a breaking point of a totally unacceptable shidduch, which these guys stay behind in cumulative numbers, as the girls take younger, better guys instead. That’s where quality comes into play. Even if the numbers at every age group are equal (and I honestly don’t know) some guys (more so than girls, not exclusively) are unacceptable to most and they get left behind. Because of the stragglers there are now more boys on the market, so the girls have the upper hand even more than before. In the same way the age disparity is likely causing an imbalance by the non chasidim favoring the guys, the quality imbalance is causing a reverse age disparity by the chasidim, with the girls gaining the upper hand. In the past a girl taking a younger boy was almost unheard of, not anymore. Just my two cents.