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I understand that in the UK, girls perform better than boys at mathematics, but mostly self-select for biology and medicine and psychology anyway, for obscure r
by card_zero 2y ago
I understand that in the UK, girls perform better than boys at mathematics, but mostly self-select for biology and medicine and psychology anyway, for obscure reasons.
- masfuerte 2y agoThat first statistic is kind of misleading. Half as many girls as boys do Maths A level (the exam for 18 year olds in the UK). Roughly speaking, you're comparing the best 20% of girls at maths to the best 40% of boys. Of course the girls do better on average. It would be astonishing if they didn't. But it is true that girls are more likely than boys not to continue with a maths-heavy subject.
- card_zero 2y agoOh, OK. So the boys are relatively overconfident, so more of them fail, but the girls are relatively realistic, so fewer of them try. Then the boys continue being overconfident and get related jobs, but the girls mostly don't. (Or perhaps they just like stats better, there's lots of stats in biosciences.)