Why are women under-represented in fields such as computer science, physics, technology, engineering, chemistry and higher mathematics? Four years ago the former president of Harvard, Larry Summers, got into big trouble for suggesting that it may be because of innate differences between men and women. While feminists reached for the smelling salts and consulted anti-discrimination law, researchers from Cornell University got busy and reviewed more than 400 articles and book chapters to reconcile conflicting evidence on why women tend to choose less math-intensive fields (such as biology, medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine), and why, when they do choose math-intensive careers, they are more likely to drop out as they advance.

They reveal in the latest Psychological Bulletin that the reason few women become engineers or heads of maths departments lies not in their brains or hormones (not “primarily” anyway) but in the fact that most want to be mothers. And, says… click here to read whole article and make comments