Carina Mood
Sociological Science September 30, 2025
10.15195/v12.a27
Abstract
This article documents a surprising reversal in the long-standing gender gap in academic achievement: between 2021 and 2024, Swedish girls’ school grades declined sharply, whereas boys’ grades remained stable, narrowing the gender gap by over a third. Using full-population data on official school grades and national test scores, the analysis shows that the decline is broad based, affecting nearly all subjects and concentrated among previously high-performing girls. Changes in grading policy or long-term mental health trends are unlikely to account for the sudden downturn. Instead, the evidence points to behavioral changes in girls’ school engagement, possibly triggered by external shocks. Among the most plausible shocks are the rise of TikTok, which increased in popularity among girls just before the grade decline, and Covid-19 disruptions, which may have acted as a catalyst. Although the causes remain uncertain, the pattern signals a sociologically significant disruption, challenging assumptions of stable female academic advantage and inviting international replication.
This article documents a surprising reversal in the long-standing gender gap in academic achievement: between 2021 and 2024, Swedish girls’ school grades declined sharply, whereas boys’ grades remained stable, narrowing the gender gap by over a third. Using full-population data on official school grades and national test scores, the analysis shows that the decline is broad based, affecting nearly all subjects and concentrated among previously high-performing girls. Changes in grading policy or long-term mental health trends are unlikely to account for the sudden downturn. Instead, the evidence points to behavioral changes in girls’ school engagement, possibly triggered by external shocks. Among the most plausible shocks are the rise of TikTok, which increased in popularity among girls just before the grade decline, and Covid-19 disruptions, which may have acted as a catalyst. Although the causes remain uncertain, the pattern signals a sociologically significant disruption, challenging assumptions of stable female academic advantage and inviting international replication.
 | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
Reproducibility Package: A reproducibility package is available at https://osf.io/y8vmk/files/osfstorage. Parts of the article are based on publicly available aggregate data. These data, links to sources, and code to reproduce the analyses are provided in the reproducibility package. Parts of the article are based on analyses of microdata accessed through Statistics Sweden’s secure MONA server within the framework of the Inequality project with ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Dnr 2019-02761). Data can be accessed only after ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (see https://etikprovningsmyndigheten.se/en/) and after secrecy assessment of Statistics Sweden (see https://www.scb.se/en/services/ordering-data-and-statistics/ ). A list of necessary registers and variables and code to reproduce the analyses are provided in the reproducibility package.
- Citation: Carina Mood. 2025. ““Equalization through Deterioration: The Shrinking Gender Gap in Swedish School Grades” Sociological Science 12: 670-684.
- Received: July 30, 2025
- Accepted: August 30, 2025
- Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Jeremy Freese
- DOI: : 10.15195/v12.a27