Mothers' anxiety to mathematics passed to daughters, research finding

Mothers’ anxiety about mathematics may be passed on to their daughters, contributing to a widening gender gap in confidence in the subject, according to new research by the Richmond Project, an education charity co-founded by former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty.

Findings from the charity’s survey, reported by The Sunday Times ahead of its official publication next week, suggest that girls begin to lose confidence in maths from as early as eight years of age. Among children aged four to eight, 51 per cent of boys said they found maths “easy”, compared with 41 per cent of girls. The gap widened with age: 86 per cent of boys aged nine to 18 said they were confident in maths, compared with 63 per cent of girls.

Murty told the newspaper that parental attitudes, particularly those of mothers, play a significant role. She said women are more likely than men to feel anxious about maths and often struggle more with helping children with homework in the subject. That anxiety, she said, can be transmitted subconsciously to daughters. “If a young girl sees her mother feeling anxious then she subconsciously buys into that anxiety. So I think that’s how that cycle goes on and on,” she said.

Independent academic research lends weight to this argument. Studies have shown that parents’ maths anxiety can influence children’s attitudes and performance, with particularly strong effects seen in same-gender parent–child pairs, including mother–daughter relationships. Other research has found that girls’ maths anxiety can affect performance from as early as primary school, even when there is no measurable difference in ability between boys and girls.

However, researchers also point to broader explanations beyond the home. Some studies suggest that girls report higher general anxiety about maths because of internalised beliefs and stereotypes about who is “good” at the subject, rather than because they experience greater anxiety during actual classroom tasks or tests. Educational practices and social expectations during early schooling have also been identified as factors that can reinforce confidence gaps over time.

Murty, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and philanthropist Sudha Murty, said her own upbringing offered strong female role models in science and engineering, which helped counter such anxieties. Her mother trained as an engineer, and several of her aunts worked in science-related fields.

The Richmond Project, named after Sunak’s North Yorkshire constituency, was set up after he returned to the backbenches as an opposition Conservative MP in July 2024. It aims to build confidence in numeracy across all ages by encouraging people to see maths as a practical, everyday skill rather than an abstract concept. Murty said the charity promotes using numbers in daily activities such as budgeting, cooking, planning journeys and splitting bills.

She said she applies this approach at home with her teenage daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, by framing maths as problem-solving through puzzles and games. “Maths is problem-solving. We tend to love puzzles as a family,” she said.

The charity’s study surveyed 8,000 adults on their maths confidence alongside numeracy questions. It found that women were nearly twice as likely as men to feel anxious or overwhelmed when dealing with numbers. In the workplace, only 43 per cent of women said they enjoyed using numbers, compared with 61 per cent of men.

As the Richmond Project prepares to release its full findings, the research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that confidence, attitudes and social influences — rather than innate ability — play a crucial role in shaping gender differences in maths from childhood through adulthood.