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Boys Trail Girls in Valuing Hard Work at School, and Richer Nations Show Bigger Gaps
In A Nutshell
- Girls rated trying hard at school as more important than boys did in all 61 countries studied, covering more than 750,000 fifteen-year-olds.
- Gaps tended to be larger in wealthier, more gender-equal countries.
- Where gaps were larger, boys tended to trail girls more in reading and made up a smaller share of college students, but not in STEM fields.
- Napp points to stereotypes linking talent to boys and effort to girls as a possible, unconfirmed explanation.
Fifteen-year-old girls say trying hard at school matters more than boys do in all 61 countries studied, and the gap tends to be wider in wealthier, more gender-equal nations. That is the finding of a PNAS Nexus analysis of more than 750,000 students, and it lands in the middle of a growing worry in many Western countries that boys are falling behind in school.
Clotilde Napp, a researcher at CNRS and Université Paris-Dauphine in France, mined results from PISA, an international test that measures math, reading, and science skills in fifteen-year-olds. Students answered survey questions, including whether trying hard at school is important. In 60 countries, girls came out ahead by a margin too big to blame on chance. South Korea, which had the smallest gap, still showed girls ahead under a looser standard. Norway, a wealthy country, had the largest.
Those survey answers appear tied to real-world results. Where boys’ views on effort trailed girls’ the furthest, boys tended to fall further behind girls in reading, and young men made up a smaller share of college students.
Boys’ School Effort Gap Shows Up Across Family Backgrounds
Students in the 2012 and 2018 PISA surveys rated how much they agreed with one simple statement: “Trying hard at school is important.” Napp reran everything with a second PISA measure, built from four related statements, to check that the wording was not skewing results. Both versions matched.
Family background did little to change the picture. Boys came in lower across wealthier and poorer households, more and less educated parents, grade repeaters and nonrepeaters, and one-parent and two-parent homes. Gap sizes did vary by region. East and Southeast Asia and Latin America had the smallest gaps, while the Nordic countries, the Middle East, and Central Asia had the largest.
Boys’ School Effort Gap Tends to Be Larger in Richer, More Equal Countries
Equal opportunity might be expected to close a gap like this. Napp found the opposite. Countries with higher economic development, stronger gender equality scores, and cultures that prize individual independence tended to have bigger gaps.
Earlier research, mostly on science and math, found a similar pattern known as the Gender Equality Paradox, in which differences between men and women grow as opportunity becomes more equal. Countries that were richer in 1980 also tend to show larger gaps today, hinting at deep roots rather than a passing trend.
Wider Effort Gaps Track Boys’ Lower Reading and College Rates, Not STEM
Individual students who valued effort more scored higher in math, reading, and science, boys and girls alike, with reading showing the strongest link.
College enrollment tells a related story. Using data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which tracks education data, Napp found that across 39 countries, men ages 19 to 22 made up less than half of college students everywhere except South Korea, averaging 44 percent. The bigger a country’s effort gap, the smaller men’s share, especially in arts and humanities.
Science and math were different. Larger effort gaps were not linked to lower male participation in STEM fields, meaning science, technology, engineering, and math, or to weaker intentions among boys to pursue math-related studies and careers. Napp adds a caution: girls’ stronger college showing does not guarantee a place in prestigious or lucrative fields such as STEM, and boys’ lower academic achievement does not necessarily mean worse outcomes in the job market.
Talent Stereotypes Line Up With Bigger Effort Gaps
Napp looked for clues in how students think about talent. Students were asked whether intelligence can change much, a belief called a growth mindset, and whether failing made them afraid they lacked talent. Where girls held a stronger growth mindset than boys by a wider margin, effort gaps were bigger. Girls were also more afraid of lacking talent on average, though that link to the effort gap was weak.
Parents and national attitudes showed up as well. Girls in every country were more likely than boys to strongly agree that their parents supported their educational efforts, and that difference was modestly tied to the effort gap. Gaps ran bigger where people more strongly linked careers with men and family with women. An earlier study of American high schoolers, cited in the paper, found boys were 1.50 times as likely as girls to report they would be made fun of for trying hard at school.
Napp offers one reading of all this, which the paper calls “a tentative reading rather than an established mechanism.” Culture may attach talent and brilliance to boys, and effort and diligence to girls. Girls may doubt their natural talent and lean on effort to compensate, while boys may coast on presumed talent and brush off effort as something feminine.
Equal opportunity does not automatically bring boys’ and girls’ attitudes toward effort together. If the talent stereotype is part of the reason, addressing the so-called boys’ crisis may take direct work on the idea that effort is for girls and brilliance is for boys, such as teaching a growth mindset and promoting role models who defy traditional gender roles.
Disclaimer: This article reports on a single published study and is for general information only. Its findings describe patterns across countries, not cause and effect, and are not educational, psychological, or medical advice for any individual.
Paper Notes
Limitations
Students’ attitudes toward effort were measured, not effort itself, and the answers were self-reported, which can skew results if students respond in ways that sound better. The main measure was a single survey question, though results held with the four-question backup. Only fifteen-year-olds were studied, so findings may not apply to other ages. Results show correlations, not cause and effect, and boys’ lower college enrollment could itself lead them to devalue school rather than the reverse. College and field-of-study data covered only about 40 countries. Only countries in PISA were included, which may not reflect places where girls’ access to schooling remains severely restricted.
Funding and Disclosures
Financial support came from the Women and Science Chair, a Dauphine Foundation Chair in partnership with Amundi, Fondation L’Oréal, Schlumberger Foundation, Generali France, La Poste, and the Descours Family. Napp declared no competing interests.
Publication Details
Napp’s paper, titled “Gender differences in attitudes toward academic effort and boys’ underachievement: A large-scale international study,” appeared in PNAS Nexus, 2026, Volume 5, Issue 10, article pgag316, published October 13, 2026, by Oxford University Press on behalf of the National Academy of Sciences. Napp is affiliated with CNRS (UMR7088) and Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL Research University, in Paris, France. Ronald Fischer edited the paper, which was received August 25, 2025, and accepted August 27, 2026. It is open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag316. The replication package is on the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VDMYK), and the underlying PISA data are publicly available from the OECD.
