Why are girls less likely to become scientists?

WSJ opinion

Excerpt: "Despite years of programs to get girls to code and to pair female scientists with mentors, men outnumber women two-to-one in STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—jobs. The gender gaps are especially wide in some of the fastest-growing and best-paying fields, such as computer science and engineering.

Advocates for closing these gaps argue that women are victims of structural inequities, such as biased hiring practices and unequal parenting demands. They are not wrong, and their effort to encourage girls to pursue STEM and to retain women in these fields makes sense. But I’m not sure they will yield the desired effects.

Sexism is surely a problem, but it may not be the main problem. There’s growing evidence that girls and women aren’t pursuing STEM careers because they’d simply prefer not to. That is, that sex differences in the STEM workforce may largely be a product of sex differences in interests and priorities."