Girls are becoming as good as boys at mathematics, and are still better at reading

May 29th 2008
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11449804

Tradition has it that boys are good at counting and girls are good at
reading. So much so that Mattel once produced a talking Barbie doll
whose stock of phrases included "Math class is tough!"

Although much is made of differences between the brains of adult males
and females, the sources of these differences are a matter of
controversy. Some people put forward cultural explanations and note,
for example, that when girls are taught separately from boys they often
do better in subjects such as maths than if classes are mixed. Others
claim that the differences are rooted in biology, are there from birth,
and exist because girls' and boys' brains have evolved to handle
information in different ways.

Luigi Guiso of the European University Institute in Florence and his
colleagues have just published the results of a study which suggests
that culture explains most of the difference in maths, at least. In
this week's SCIENCE, they show that the gap in mathematics scores
between boys and girls virtually disappears in countries with high
levels of sexual equality, though the reading gap remains.
Dr Guiso took data from the 2003 OECD Programme for International
Student Assessment. Some 276,000 15-year-olds from 40 countries sat the
same maths and reading tests. The researchers compared the results, by
country, with each other and with a number of different measures of
social sexual equality. One measure was the World Economic Forum's
gender-gap index, which reflects economic and political opportunities,
education and well-being for women. Another was based on an index of
cultural attitudes towards women. A third was the rate of female
economic activity in a country, and the fourth measure looked at
women's political participation.

On average, girls' maths scores were, as expected, lower than those of
boys. However, the gap was largest in countries with the least equality
between the sexes (by any score), such as Turkey. It vanished in
countries such as Norway and Sweden, where the sexes are more or less
on a par with one another. The researchers also 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. They say their data therefore show
that improvements in maths scores are related not to economic
development, but directly to improvements in the social position of
women.

The one mathematical gap that did not disappear was the differences
between girls and boys in geometry. This seems to have no relation to
sexual equality, and may allow men to cling on to their famed claim to
be better at navigating than women are. However, 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 maths as the boys, their advantage in reading had increased.
This suggests an interesting paradox. At first sight, girls' rise to
mathematical equality suggests they should be invading maths-heavy
professions such as engineering--and that if they are not, the
implication might be that prejudice is keeping them out. However, as
David Ricardo observed almost 200 years ago, economic optimisation is
about comparative advantage. The rise in female reading scores
alongside their maths scores suggests that female comparative advantage
in this area has not changed. According to Paola Sapienza, a professor
of finance at the Kellogg School of Management in Illinois who is one
of the paper's authors, that is just what has happened. Other studies
of gifted girls, she says, show that even though the girls had the
ability, fewer than expected ended up reading maths and sciences at
university. Instead, they went on to be become successful in areas such
as law.

In other words, girls may acquire an absolute advantage over boys as a
result of equal treatment. This is something that society, more
broadly, has not yet taken on board. Mattel may wish to take note that
among Teen Talk Barbie's 270 phrases concerning shopping, parties and
clothes, at least one might usefully have been, "Dostoevsky rocks!"