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Do the maths: An analysis of the gender gap in mathematics in Africa
Open accessAbstract
This paper uses microdata for 19 African countries to examine the gender difference in maths test scores amongst primary school children. There is a significant difference in maths test scores in favour of boys, similar to that previously observed in developed countries. This difference cannot be explained by gender differences in school quality, home environment, or within-school gender discrimination in access to schooling inputs. However, the gender gap varies widely with characteristics of the regions in which the pupils live, and these regional characteristics are more predictive of the gender gap than parental education and school characteristics, including teacher gender. At the cross-country level, differences in fertility rates account for nearly half the variation in the gender gap, and this relationship is not due to the correlation between fertility and GDP.
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“In general, males performed at a higher level in Math, and this holds true for both young and old (Dickerson et al., 2015; Else-Quest et al., 2010; Marks, 2008; Stoet & Geary, 2013, 2015; Tao & Michalopoulos, 2018; van Hek et al., 2017; Weber et al., 2014), although sex differences are lacking in data from TIMSS (Else-Quest et al., 2010).”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Dickerson et al., 2015
In the citing paper
“Note that studies that used data on older adults (55+; Dickerson et al., 2015; Voyer & Voyer, 2014; Weber et al., 2014) found a rather coherent pattern of sex differences being smaller in countries with higher living conditions.”
From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Dickerson et al., 2015
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Cited by
Role Models in Movies: The Impact of Queen of Katwe on Students’ Educational Attainment
Riley, E. (2024) · Review of Economics and Statistics · doi:10.1162/rest_a_01153 · Cited by 117
A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox
Herlitz, A., Hönig, I., Hedebrant, K., & Asperholm, M. (2025) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231202685 · Cited by 59
Metadata
- Authors
- Dickerson, A., McIntosh, S., & Valente, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Valente, Christine
- Venue
- Economics of Education Review
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-06
- Volume
- 46
- Pages
- 1-22
- ISSN
- 0272-7757 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2235466654
- Cited by
- 89
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 31.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Economics of Education Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Explore Bristol Research (publishedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Royal Economic Society
- University of Oxford
- Department for International Development
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Keywords
- gender gap in mathematics, elementary school students, mathematics scores, fertility rate, regional characteristics, parental education, teacher gender, school quality, family environment, Africa
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.