Kids Think Girls Are Worse Than Boys at Computer Science, Study Shows

Children as young as six years old are internalizing gender stereotypes in relation to technology, which could exacerbate inequality in a rapidly evolving labor market, a new meta-analysis of research conducted across 33 countries shows.

According to findings from the largest ever study of children’s gender stereotypes about science, technology, engineering and mathematics—or STEM—the young participants generally considered boys to be more capable than girls in fields including computer science and engineering.

“The early emergence of these biases signals that kids acquire messages about computing and engineering stereotypes at home and in other environments before K‑12 schooling,” said David Miller, the lead author of the study, and a senior researcher at the American Institutes for Research, the nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducted the research. “Parents, early childhood educators, and out-of-school-time programs have a key role to play in helping to reshape these narratives,” he added.

The research found that, across all of the 6-year olds questioned, 35% said that they thought boys were better at computing than girls, while only 22% said the inverse was true, and 43% said that there was no difference. For engineering, 52% said that boys were better, compared to just 10% who said that girls had an edge.

The findings, based on data from 145,000 children, are particularly concerning considering the extent to which new technologies are transforming the labor market and the nature of work. Artificial intelligence, or AI, is particularly slated to change the way we work. Goldman Sachs last year predicted that generative AI could displace up to 300 million jobs.

Analysis also done last year by the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School established that eight out of 10 women—or about 59 million individuals in the US workforce—are in occupations that are “highly exposed to generative AI automation,” compared to about six out of 10 men. And more recently, studies have shown that women are generally slower to experiment with and adopt generative AI technologies.

The research done by AIR and published in Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association, also found that for girls, the male-STEM bias increases considerably with age. At age 6, about 34% of girls questioned said that they thought girls were better at computing than boys, while 20% said that they thought boys were better. By age 16, however, only 8% said that they thought girls were better while a staggering 39% said that boys were.

Miller characterized this as evidence that “initiatives focused on ‘girls in math’ or ‘girls in STEM’ may [be falling] short of addressing the most entrenched male-biased beliefs.”

“These initiatives need dedicated attention on girls in computing and engineering,” he said. “Especially in early childhood, before these stereotypes set in.”