New Delhi: Indian children working in retail markets excel in real-world mental math but significantly underperform in academic math assessments, a new study published in Nature has found. Conversely, students who attend school without working often excel in classroom math but struggle with everyday calculations common in markets.
The study, led by Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo from MIT, alongside researchers from Ananda Bazar Patrika, IIM Kolkata, NYU, and Harvard, highlights a critical gap in how math skills are applied across different contexts. The researchers conducted three experiments involving over 800 children in Kolkata and Delhi, comparing the mathematical performance of “market kids” and “school kids.”
In the first experiment with 201 market-working children in Kolkata, kids demonstrated strong mental arithmetic. For instance, when asked to calculate the cost of 800 grams of potatoes at ₹20 per kilogram and 1.4 kilograms of onions at ₹15 per kilogram, they answered correctly 95–98% of the time by the second attempt. However, when the same children were tested with standardized academic math problems, only 32% could correctly divide a three-digit number by a single digit, and 54% could subtract two-digit numbers accurately twice.
The second experiment in Delhi with 400 market kids and 200 school-only children replicated these findings. While 96% of school kids solved classroom problems using paper and pencil, only 60% succeeded when the same problems were framed in real-world market contexts. The market kids, on the other hand, excelled in practical arithmetic but showed poor performance in academic-style questions, even if they were still enrolled in school.
“For the school kids, they do worse when you go from an abstract problem to a concrete problem,” said Esther Duflo. “For the market kids, it’s the opposite.”
A third study comparing both groups under different conditions found that 85% of market kids could solve transaction-related problems correctly, while only 10% of non-working school kids managed the same without aids like paper and pencil. However, in formal academic tasks, 59% of school kids performed better compared to 45% of market kids.
Abhijit Banerjee noted, “The kids with jobs who are also in school underperform despite being extraordinarily good at mental math. That, for me, was always the revelation—that one doesn’t translate into the other.”
Researchers suggest that school kids rely heavily on algorithms without understanding underlying concepts, while market kids develop intuitive strategies, such as rounding numbers for quick calculations. Duflo observed, “The market kids are able to exploit base 10, so they do better on base 10 problems. The school kids have no idea.”
The study raises concerns about educational approaches, emphasizing the need to bridge the gap between formal academic instruction and real-world problem-solving. “These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal mathematics,” the authors stated.
The research was supported by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab’s Post-Primary Education Initiative, the Foundation Blaise Pascal, and the AXA Research Fund.
