Originally Posted by ultramarina
FTR, there is also this article, which seems to be open-access:

http://www.ams.org/notices/200810/fea-gallian.pdf
Interesting article, I am still absorbing it.

I would love to know the life history of the people from the countries where women were well represented.

People are not going to necessarily like this, but I believe identifying a person's future abilities at such an early age is part of the problem in the USA and Canada. By the time those who would have been gifted in mathematics would normally show these skills, they have already been convinced mathematics is not their strength by the early testing.

If Einstein had been evaluated at an early stage in his life, he would have more than likely been classified as a slow learner. This may have led him to feel he was not suited to academic endeavors later in life.

I wonder if these other countries put less emphasis on these early stages of life.