TL;DR at the end.
This post piqued my interest. If the top Google result is correct and our average IQ truly is 76, then a third of the population would have IQs less than 70, which is intellectual disability! This is obviously false.
So I looked into The Intelligence of Nations, the famous book of the person who reported the 76 figure (Richard Lynn). Ignoring the fact that he is a proud racist, here are the seven studies he cited (two of which he did):
| Year | Age | Education | Area | Governorate | Sample | Score | Authors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 23.48 average | Undergraduate | Alexandria University | Alexandria | 452 | 77.08 | Abdel-Khalek |
| 1995 | 7-10 | Primary | Kalama Village | Qalyubia | 110 | 70.6 | Wachs et. al. |
| 1995 | 8.9-11.2 | Primary | El-Katta Village | Giza | 170 | 77.52 | Yunis et al. |
| 2014 | 20.5 | Undergraduate | Ain Shams University | Cairo | 2147 | 77.07 | Abdel-Khalek et al. |
| 2015 | 6-20+ | NA | South Egypt | Giza, Assiut, Sohag and Aswan | 7600 | 89 | Lynn and Bakhiet |
| 2015 | 5.6-10.5 | Primary | All of Egypt | All Governorates | 11284 | 85.41 | Lynn and Bakhiet |
| 2017 | 5-11 | Primary | Rural | Menoufia | 1756 | 89.46 | Ziada et al. |
He states that these studies give a weighted average IQ of 86.46 (seems about right), but he also cites Egypt's participation in TIMSS and PIRLS, from which he calculates the 76 "average IQ."
Here's the problem: those two tests, at their core, assess curricular knowledge and abilities (math, science, literacy), not pattern-recognition, problem-solving, and reasoning (at least not directly). While academic ability is correlated with IQ, we can all agree that education sucks here.
It's annoying how Google puts this estimation (76) as a top result instead of the actual studies that measure IQ directly (86). And that's ignoring the fact that none of the studies motivated test-takers (which can yield a 5–10 point increase) or the fact that some studies exclusively tested rural children (which yields lower scores).
TL;DR: At least seven studies were conducted to measure Egyptians' IQ. Their total sample size is over 23 thousand, and together, they calculate the average IQ to be 86, NOT 76 (76 is the estimation of some white-supremacist). I also believe the real value to be even higher for different reasons (see above).
I just wanted to publicize this. I can now sleep peacefully knowing that only (a maximum of) 6% have an IQ associated with intellectual disabilities.
