“Maths Anxiety is Contagious”: Study Reveals Mothers Unwittingly Pass Fear of Numbers to Daughters
LONDON, 11 Jan 2026 (BNN Web Staff) —
A groundbreaking new survey from ‘The Richmond Project’, an education charity founded by former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, has revealed a troubling cycle of “maths anxiety” being passed from mothers to their daughters. This unconscious transmission is contributing to a significant and growing gender gap in confidence and performance in mathematics.
The study, published in The Sunday Times, indicates that this divergence emerges startlingly early. Among children aged four to eight, 51% of boys consider maths “easy,” compared to just 41% of girls. This confidence gap widens dramatically with age. By the time they are 9 to 18 years old, 86% of boys feel confident in maths, while the figure for girls plummets to 63%.
The “Unconscious Fear” Passed to the Next Generation
Akshata Murty, a key figure behind the charity, explained the mechanism behind this trend. She noted that women often report higher anxiety when helping their children with maths homework. “If a little girl sees her mother being fearful of maths, she unconsciously picks up that fear,” Murty stated. “That anxiety gets perpetuated through the generations.”
Murty contrasted this with her own upbringing, crediting her positive attitude towards maths to the strong STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) role models in her family, including her mother, Sudha Murty, an engineer. “Because I saw so many female role models in STEM around me, I never grew up thinking that maths was not for me,” she said.
Key Findings from the Survey of 8,000 Adults:
A Gendered Anxiety: The survey found women are almost twice as likely as men to feel anxiety around numbers.
Workplace Disparity: Only 43% of women in the workplace enjoy working with numbers, compared to 61% of men.
Early Onset: The confidence gap between boys and girls is already evident in early childhood.
Mission: Redefining Maths as a Life Skill
The stated mission of ‘The Richmond Project’ is to make maths relevant by demonstrating its practical, everyday applications—such as budgeting, planning shopping, calculating recipes, or understanding travel times. Murty advocates for a fundamental shift in how the subject is perceived.
She argues that maths must be presented not as a “scary and abstract subject” but as a core problem-solving skill essential for navigating life. This philosophy guides her personal approach as a parent: she regularly engages her own daughters with puzzles, crosswords, and number games to build familiarity and comfort.
The charity’s study underscores the need for early intervention and awareness to break this cycle of inherited anxiety, aiming to foster a generation of girls who approach maths with the same confidence as their male peers.
