Price is set at the margin with fewer females dating the remaining set the price. I think the core part of the problem is that women do not seem to know the actual distribution of men and what should be the expected likelihood of desired attributes. This is most obvious when they sincerely pick attributes which they believe to be the median range but are in fact only in the >90% of men. I think this is the predominant reason why fewer women are at the price setting margin.

There is little attention paid to the negative consequences of this overestimation - possibly because few people pay attention to older women who have paid those consequences and older women have no incentive to inform younger women as quite often they are still in competition with them. Trying to educate young women that they really should realistic about their prospects is not going to be popular. In general men appear to already have an accurate estimate of the distribution of attributes. I think the proportion of the difference is demonstrated by the attributes that men and women covet and the difficulty in achieving those attributes. For example losing weight is far easier than growing taler.