Math Girls
A new study by Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, et al. (”Culture, Gender, and Math“), took data from the 2003 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (in which some 280K 15-year-olds from 40 countries took the same math and reading tests) and compared the results, by country, with each-other and with various measures of social sexual equality (such as the World Economic Forum’s gender-gap index).
On average, girls’ maths scores were lower than those of boys. The gap was largest in countries (such as Turkey) with the least equality between the sexes, & vanished in countries with the most equality — except for geometry scores, which had no relation to sexual equality. The researchers did some additional statistical checks to ensure the correlation was material, and not generated by another, third variable that is correlated with sexual equality, such as GDP per person.
The gap in reading scores not only remained, but got bigger as the sexes became more equal. Average reading scores were higher for girls than for boys in all countries. But in more equal societies, not only were the girls as good at math as the boys, their advantage in reading had increased.
This may explain why, despite girls’ rise to mathematical equality in some countries, women in those countries have not invaded math-heavy professions, such as engineering. Economic optimization is about comparative advantage. The rise in female reading scores alongside their math scores suggests that female comparative advantage in this area has not changed.
“Vital statistics,” The Economist