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We were struck by the variation in the figures; southern Europe was very noticeably better than northern Europe for example. One of my colleagues produced an aha moment in a meeting by noticing that what was happening was that proportion of women was low in countries where maths was considered a high-status subject, one many of the cleverest people would go into, and high in countries where it was considered a low status subject

Oh, very interesting! (And again supports the observation that the number of women in math varies wildly from country to country, which seriously undercuts any argument that men are biologically advantaged. As does another number I read somewhere, which is that 30% of math doctorates now go to women, up from a mere 5% in the 50s. Fascinatingly, the number had been much higher in the 1890s, IIRC.)