{"id":408152,"date":"2026-01-12T11:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408152\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T11:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T11:07:14","slug":"how-maths-anxiety-passed-from-mothers-is-holding-girls-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408152\/","title":{"rendered":"How maths anxiety passed from mothers is holding girls back"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study by the Richmond Project<\/a>, an education charity founded by former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, suggests that anxiety around mathematics is often passed from mothers to daughters, gradually deepening the confidence gap between boys and girls.<\/p>\n

The findings, first reported by The Sunday Times ahead of the study\u2019s official release next week, show that differences in confidence begin early. Among children aged four to eight, 51 per cent of boys described maths as \u201ceasy\u201d, compared with 41 per cent of girls. By the time they reach nine to 18, the divide becomes far more pronounced, with 86 per cent of boys expressing confidence in maths against just 63 per cent of girls.<\/p>\n

Murty said the pattern is closely linked to how parents themselves relate to the subject. According to the survey, women are more likely than men to struggle with helping their children with maths homework, reinforcing a cycle of anxiety.
\u201cThere\u2019s a level of discomfort with numbers that women tend to experience more than men,\u201d Murty said. \u201cWhen a young girl sees her mother feeling unsure or anxious about maths, that feeling is often absorbed and carried forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murty, the daughter of Infosys<\/a> co-founder Narayana Murthy and author Sudha Murty, said her own upbringing offered a strong counter-example. With an engineer for a mother and several relatives working in science, she was exposed to positive STEM role models<\/a> from an early age.<\/p>\n

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She explained that the core mission of the Richmond Project is to make numbers less intimidating and more relevant to everyday life. \u201cMaths shouldn\u2019t feel abstract,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about planning shopping, following recipes, reading timetables, splitting bills \u2014 these are skills everyone uses.\u201d
At home, Murty has worked to nurture that mindset with her daughters, Krishna and Anoushka. \u201cWe\u2019ve always treated maths as problem-solving. As a family we love puzzles \u2014 from jigsaws when they were younger to Wordle and crosswords now.\u201dThe charity\u2019s research, based on a survey of 8,000 adults combined with numeracy testing, found that women were almost twice as likely as men to feel anxious or overwhelmed by numbers. In the workplace, only 43 per cent of women said they enjoyed working with numbers, compared with 61 per cent of men \u2014 a gap that researchers say mirrors the confidence divide that forms in childhood.<\/p>\n

The Richmond Project was established in July 2024 after Sunak returned to the backbenches as an opposition MP. Its aim is to dismantle psychological barriers around numeracy and build lasting confidence in numbers across generations.(With PTI inputs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study by the Richmond Project, an education charity founded by former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,216223,137,15555,216222,216227,514,515,216226,216224,216221,216225],"class_list":{"0":"post-408152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-gender-confidence-gap","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-infosys","13":"tag-math-anxiety","14":"tag-math-skills","15":"tag-mental-health","16":"tag-mentalhealth","17":"tag-mothers-and-daughters","18":"tag-numeracy-education","19":"tag-richmond-project","20":"tag-stem-role-models"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}