Our fan Aliza W. just asked us a great question: are there more girls or boys in the world? At birth, more boys are born: for every 100 baby girls, there are 106 baby boys. If you look at people of all ages, though, it evens out to about 1 boy for every girl, partly because women live longer than men. In fact, if you look only at people 65 years or older, there are only 3/4 as many men as women!
Wee ones: Do you have more girls than boys in your family, or more boys than girls? How many of each?
Little kids: If a boy swings on the monkey bars, then a girl, then a boy…does a girl or a boy go 6th? Bonus: If there are 7 kids on the jungle gym and there’s 1 more boy than girl, how many of each are there?
Big kids: If 106 boys and 100 girls line up for tug-of-war, how many kids would that be in total? Bonus: If 19 more boys show up, how many more girls do we need to have equal numbers of each?
The sky’s the limit: If 800 200-pound men do tug of war against 1,000 women, how much do the women have to weigh to match the men’s total weight?
Answers:
Wee ones: Different for everyone…count up your family!
Little kids: A girl goes 6th. Bonus: 4 boys, 3 girls.
Big kids: 206 kids. Bonus: 25 girls.
The sky’s the limit: 160 pounds each, since the men weigh 160,000 total.
