Girls are once again losing ground to boys in mathematics, according to study

“This trend is worrying,” warns the UN organization, which considers that strong skills in mathematics are essential “to drive economic and social development, foster innovation and find solutions to urgent global problems.”

The analysis, prepared together with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), is based on data from the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) collected between 1995 and 2023.

Specifically, data are collected in 47 countries and territories at the end of primary education and in 38 in lower secondary education, including Spain, China, Australia and the United States.

Although girls have “historically” shown lower results than boys in mathematics, the gap had narrowed significantly in the years 2000 and 2010, the authors emphasize.

But since 2019 the dynamic has reversed. In 2023, boys outperformed girls at the end of primary school in 81% of the countries studied, up from 52% in 2019, 39% in 2015, 41% in 2011 and 26% in 2003.

The differences are also reflected in the distribution of skill levels. In 2023, 21% of countries had a higher proportion of girls not meeting the minimum international threshold in mathematics at the end of primary school, up from 4% in 2019 and 2% in 2015.

At the same time, since 2007 the proportion of countries in which children have a particularly low level has continued to decrease, until it practically disappears in 2023 (2%).

In secondary school, the situation seems more nuanced, but the trend remains worrying. Although the proportion of countries in which boys outperform girls is lower than in primary school, it clearly increases in the long term.

UNESCO and the IEA partly attribute this setback to the lasting effects of the Covid crisis, as prolonged school closures increased learning losses in mathematics and weakened girls’ confidence and engagement.

To stop this dynamic, both organizations call for action from primary school, reinforcing girls’ confidence in mathematics through recreational activities, training teachers in gender biases to combat stereotypes and guaranteeing systematic monitoring of results by sex.