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If your daughter says she is "not a maths person", the data suggest the problem may be confidence more than ability. Here is what international data and research show about the gap, and what parents can do about it at home.
What PISA shows about girls, maths and confidence
PISA, run by the OECD, tests 15-year-olds around the world. In the PISA 2022 results, which covered 81 countries and economies, boys outperformed girls in mathematics by 9 score points on average across OECD countries, while girls outperformed boys in reading by 24 points. In science, the difference between boys and girls was not significant.
The confidence gap is more consistent than the score gap. An OECD analysis of PISA 2022 data in Mathematics for Life and Work (2024) reports that across all OECD countries, 15-year-old boys reported higher mathematics self-efficacy than girls, that is, more belief in their ability to handle maths tasks. Girls were more likely to report low self-efficacy and higher anxiety, and boys reported enjoying maths more. The same report notes that in Singapore, the gender difference in self-efficacy is small, which the authors read as a sign that a system can set high expectations for both boys and girls.
Why this matters: the same report notes that higher self-efficacy is associated with higher maths performance, and higher anxiety with lower performance. Confidence is not just a feeling; it can shape whether a student keeps going on a hard problem or decides the subject is not for her.
Where the gap comes from
No single cause explains it, but research points to the adults around children.
A study by Beilock, Gunderson, Ramirez and Levine (PNAS, 2010) tested first- and second-grade classrooms in the US. At the start of the year, a female teacher's maths anxiety was unrelated to her students' maths achievement. By the end of the year, the more anxious the teacher, the more likely girls (but not boys) were to endorse the stereotype that boys are good at maths and girls at reading, and girls who endorsed it scored lower in maths. The link appeared to run through what girls learned about who is good at maths.
The lesson for parents: children pick up beliefs about who does maths from the adults they watch, and that may include parents. Our article on when a child says "I'm bad at maths" covers how parents' own maths anxiety can pass on.
What parents can do: a practical list
What you say
Praise strategies and persistence, not talent. "You tried three methods before that one worked" beats "You're so smart".
When she says "I'm bad at this", answer with "You haven't learned this part yet. Which step loses you?"
Talk about why maths and physics are useful in things she cares about. A US trial found that helping parents have these conversations led teens to take more maths and science; see Harackiewicz and colleagues (2012).
What you model
Do maths in front of her without complaining: budgets, travel times, recipes.
Point out women working in science and engineering, in the family or in the news.
If you are anxious about maths yourself, say "let's work it out together" rather than "I can't do this".
What you expect
Expect the same effort and the same subject choices from daughters and sons.
Treat a weak test as information about what to practise, not a verdict on ability. See how to bounce back after a bad test.
A weekly confidence-builder
Once a week, ask your daughter to explain one maths or physics idea to you as if you were the student. Explaining builds understanding, and being the expert builds confidence. If she gets stuck on a step, the Fermi Problem Library has worked problems with a step-by-step solver that explains the reasoning, so she can find the missing step herself and come back to finish the explanation.
