Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders. Girls Lead in Science Exam, but Not in the United States - Interactive Graphic. Girls outperformed boys in more countries in a science test given to 15-year-old students in 65 countries — but in the United States, boys led the girls.
Countries in Asia and Northern Europe had high scores, and 15-year-old girls consistently outscored boys. But the opposite was true in the United States, where boys scored 2.7 percent better than girls. The motherhood penalty: It’s not children that slow mothers down. There are fewer women at the top because they have a different work/life balance than men, it is claimed.
Mothers’ careers progress slowly because they are mothers — because they have to spend more time on their children. There’s some appeal in this explanation; it seems intuitively correct. Mothers have greater childcare responsibilities than fathers. Sheryl Sandberg Presents: Deeply Troubling Stats About Women.