Results — Sex Differences in Variability

Headline Confirmatory Evidence

There are 67 headline-eligible confirmatory cells and 263 supporting inferential cells. Confirmatory here means the core pre-designated rows used for the main claim. The forest plot now uses variance-ratio confidence intervals rather than point estimates alone.

What these claim-status labels mean

Headline claim: Core confirmatory rows with the strongest survey-design handling and no fallback flags. Only these rows feed the main headline claim.
Supporting evidence: Inferential rows kept for added age or domain coverage, but still kept separate from the main headline claim.
Provisional: Rows that depend on fallback weights or other temporary inference paths. They stay visible, but they do not count as headline evidence.
Method-limited: Rows with usable point estimates but weaker uncertainty estimates, usually because only simple effective-sample-size approximations were available.
QA only: Rows retained for transparency and diagnostics only, not for inferential claims.

Largest headline confirmatory deviations from equal variance
Dataset	Cycle / wave	Age	Trait	VR	95% CI	Direction	Claim status
ECLS-K:2011	Fall Kindergarten 2010	K	Reading achievement	0.10x	0.10x to 0.10x	F > M	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	60-65	Numeracy	1.46x	1.21x to 1.76x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	30-34	Numeracy	1.44x	1.13x to 1.84x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	45-49	Adaptive problem solving	1.41x	1.02x to 1.95x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	45-49	Numeracy	1.38x	1.00x to 1.91x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	35-39	Adaptive problem solving	1.38x	0.99x to 1.93x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	60-65	Literacy	1.38x	1.13x to 1.69x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Spring Fourth Grade 2015	4	Reading achievement	1.37x	1.25x to 1.50x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	60-65	Adaptive problem solving	1.35x	1.09x to 1.66x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Spring Second Grade 2013	2	Reading achievement	1.32x	1.15x to 1.52x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	35-39	Numeracy	1.32x	0.92x to 1.89x	M > F	Headline claim
PISA 2022	2022	15-year-olds	Math achievement	1.30x	1.20x to 1.41x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Spring Second Grade 2013	2	Math achievement	1.29x	1.11x to 1.49x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Fall Second Grade 2012	2	Math achievement	1.28x	1.13x to 1.46x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Spring Third Grade 2014	3	Reading achievement	1.28x	1.19x to 1.38x	M > F	Headline claim
ECLS-K:2011	Spring Kindergarten 2011	K	Reading achievement	1.28x	1.25x to 1.31x	M > F	Headline claim
PIAAC cycle 2	cycle2	35-39	Literacy	1.27x	0.90x to 1.80x	M > F	Headline claim
PISA 2022	2022	15-year-olds	Science achievement	1.25x	1.14x to 1.37x	M > F	Headline claim

Searchable Cell Explorer

The rankings still exist in the bundle, but the public page now exposes them through one searchable interface with filters and sort presets.

Cell Explorer

Search by dataset, trait, age, cycle, or explanation text. Then filter or sort instead of scanning multiple long ranking tables.

Dataset	Cycle / wave	Age	Trait	Claim	Direction	VR	95% CI	N	Explanation

Supporting Evidence

Supporting datasets stay separate from the headline claim. Their counts and tables are generated from the same normalized rows.

Supporting-evidence summary
Dataset	Priority	Rows	With CI	Headline	Provisional	Method-limited	QA only	Median VR	% Male-greater
HRS public	confirmatory	26	15	0	0	15	11	0.97x	47%
HRS public	exploratory	156	76	0	21	76	80	0.97x	38%
NHANES selected cycles	secondary	250	73	73	0	0	177	1.13x	71%
NHANES selected cycles	exploratory	222	59	59	0	0	163	0.90x	41%
PSID CDS / TAS	secondary	81	14	0	2	14	67	1.10x	71%
PSID CDS / TAS	exploratory	19	14	0	1	14	5	1.09x	71%
PSID CDS / TAS	unknown	12	12	0	3	12	0	1.22x	58%

Largest supporting-evidence cells
Dataset	Cycle / wave	Age	Trait	VR	95% CI	Direction	Claim status
HRS public	HRS 2020	52-55	Total cognition summary	3.65x	0.52x to 25.91x	M > F	Provisional
NHANES selected cycles	2011-2012	12-15	Grip strength (kg)	3.39x	2.83x to 4.05x	M > F	Supporting evidence
NHANES selected cycles	2013-2014	12-15	Grip strength (kg)	2.88x	2.21x to 3.76x	M > F	Supporting evidence
NHANES selected cycles	2013-2014	16-19	Grip strength (kg)	2.68x	2.28x to 3.15x	M > F	Supporting evidence
NHANES selected cycles	2011-2012	12-15	Height (cm)	2.38x	2.06x to 2.75x	M > F	Supporting evidence
NHANES selected cycles	2017-2018	12-15	Height (cm)	2.35x	1.78x to 3.10x	M > F	Supporting evidence
NHANES selected cycles	2013-2014	12-15	Height (cm)	2.30x	1.84x to 2.88x	M > F	Supporting evidence
HRS public	HRS 2020	60-63	Total cognition summary	2.17x	1.08x to 4.33x	M > F	Provisional
NHANES selected cycles	2015-2016	60-63	BMI	0.47x	0.29x to 0.76x	F > M	Supporting evidence
PSID CDS / TAS	TAS 2019	all_ages	BMI	2.03x	1.69x to 2.42x	M > F	Provisional
NHANES selected cycles	2011-2012	0-3	Waist circumference (cm)	0.55x	0.27x to 1.09x	F > M	Supporting evidence
HRS public	HRS 2018	52-55	Total cognition summary	1.80x	0.94x to 3.45x	M > F	Provisional

Robustness

Robustness summaries remain build artifacts, but the public tables and counts here are now generated from the same bundle.

Cross-dataset robustness summary
Dataset	Variant	Matched cells	Median \|Δ\|	Sign change rate
Local NLSY	child_no_maternal_fallback	29	0.000	0.0%
Local NLSY	coarse_age_bands	16	0.000	0.0%
Local NLSY	unweighted	34	0.030	1.9%
Local NLSY	winsorized_weighted	34	0.002	0.0%
HRS public	unweighted	92	0.052	11.0%
HRS public	winsorized_weighted	85	0.000	0.5%
PSID CDS / TAS	unweighted	40	0.058	4.5%
PSID CDS / TAS	winsorized_weighted	40	0.018	2.7%
NHANES selected cycles	unweighted	132	0.050	2.5%
NHANES selected cycles	winsorized_weighted	132	0.019	1.3%