Sex Differences in Work Aspirations
Another important paper from Stoet and Geary
We investigated sex differences in 473,260 adolescents’ aspirations to work in things-oriented (e.g., mechanic), people-oriented (e.g., nurse), and STEM (e.g., mathematician) careers across 80 countries and economic regions using the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). We analyzed student career aspirations in combination with student achievement in mathematics, reading, and science, as well as parental occupations and family wealth. In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation. These sex differences were larger in countries with a higher level of women’s empowerment. We explain this counter-intuitive finding through the indirect effect of wealth. Women’s empowerment is associated with relatively high levels of national wealth and this wealth allows more students to aspire to occupations they are intrinsically interested in. Implications for better understanding the sources of sex differences in career aspirations and associated policy are discussed.
…it has been four generations since Miner’s [10] assessment of adolescents’ occupational interests and core sex differences have not changed much, despite dramatic social and economic changes since that time. Boys continue to express a greater interest in blue-collar and white-collar things-oriented occupations than do girls, and girls continue to show a greater interest in people-oriented
occupations.…Policy makers have regularly expressed a desire to reduce the number of students choosing stereotypical careers (e.g., [49]) or to increase the number of girls aspiring to and women entering technical occupations, especially STEM occupations [22]. The results of this study and related ones reveal a policy-relevant conundrum [3,4,6,50]. Generally speaking, more developed and gender equal nations are better than less developed nations in attracting boys to more established things-oriented (often blue-collar) occupations, but they fail to attract girls to these areas. This problem is also occurring for the subset of things-oriented STEM occupations. In fact, the problem for STEM is even more profound, given that interest in STEM declines for both boys and
girls in more developed, innovative, and gender equal nations.
See also my previous post Do Boys Have a Comparative Advantage in Math and Science?
Hat tip: Steve Stewart-Williams.
Comments
"Policy makers have regularly expressed a desire to reduce the number of students choosing stereotypical careers (e.g., [49]) or to increase the number of girls aspiring to and women entering technical occupations, especially STEM occupations [22]. "
And why do they want to do that? It seems like the left is always at war with human nature. And they never learn.
Much of worldview of the left is based on "let’s pretend". This is reflected in a belief in the magical power of totems and words.
You can observe this as a cargo cult, a of paper with College Degree printed on it make one educated and delivers all the benefits of an above average middle class life. Or the spoken invocation of "I’m a girl" changes a man into a woman.
Such beliefs are perhaps charming in a five year old, not so much in people setting national policy.
"In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation."
Send the paper to the people running Google who fired James Damore for saying outlandish things like "women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things", and that this might partly explain the "gender gap" in the company.
Oh boy would my wife (a nurse) be pissed at you for describing nursing as a non-STEM profession.
Your wife has a good point. Note though that if nursing and other similar medical professions were (rightly) categorized as STEM fields, then the number of STEM degrees awarded to women would vastly outnumber the number of STEM degrees awarded to men in the US - and certain political factions do not want that.
The White House recently introduced a new "Life of Linda" comic (one may recall the Obama admin Life of Julia) in which Linda is a hard hat and tool belt wearing manufacturing worker, and single mom.
Notably absent from the vision is her kid’s deadbeat dad, who probably also get the message on their non-existent role.
It’s kind of amazing to see academic types engage in pretzel logic and increasing irrationality to explain away observations that counter their belief in a tabula rasa.
2019 national MATHCOUNTS top 56 students (out of about 224 students):
https://www.mathcounts.org/sites/default/files/2019%20National%20Final%20Standings_0.pdf
There are 5 clearly female first names. There may be a few more girls with names I can’t recognize as female. There is one girl in the top 12. (Top 12 is a big deal in MATHCOUNTS.) I think it’s also common for there to be no girls in the top 12. It’s usually 0 or 1.
Girls are a small fraction of the top students in math competitions. The reasons for that almost certainly also affect career paths.
There was 1 in the national countdown round in my year. She finished 9th I think. She was then the freshman neighbor of my college girlfriend. I should've used the opportunity to trade girlfriends.
I think 5 out of 56 is higher than I remember, but it certainly sounds plausible.
I have known several women pursuing careers in the physical sciences and engineering. It seems to me that they have been more likely to have no children than the average of their sex. Do the figures bear this out or is it just an accident of looking at a small sample?
In each country and region, more boys than girls aspired to a things-oriented or STEM occupation and more girls than boys to a people-oriented occupation. These sex differences were larger in countries with a higher level of women’s empowerment. We explain this counter-intuitive finding …
That finding isn’t counter intuitive at all to me.
Perhaps possibly maybe "equality" does not serve as the apt economic/political/social notation that could be rendered by the term "complementarity".
(Surely, within the three domains of things-oriented, people-oriented, and STEM professions [and who is it that gets left out, and how many get left out, of these three identified categories?], strict "equality" in pay and benefits do not exist: would this necessarily imply that, for egalitarian standards to be pursued or their pretence maintained, we are obliged to impose by fiat "career valuations" that result in "more equality" [with minor differences for local costs of living, e. g.] since the market valuations of labor seem to result in so many pernicious discrepancies?)
I've known enough engineers to be pretty convinced that (1) you can usually recognize a future engineer by the time they're six or seven. (2) this personality type skews male.
Of course I would be fired at Google for expressing this opinion.
to be fair
how many times has cnns jake p taper the faux pee tape pimper lectured us that their was no election fraud
https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/29/wisconsin-elections-commission-shattered-laws-by-telling-nursing-home-staffers-to-illegally-cast-ballots-for-residents/
The issue is not trying to get more women to go into engineering and the hard sciences but in why no one is trying to get more men to go into healthcare and education.
As ed and med has replaced manufacturing, men have not moved into healthcare. In reality, men have less interest in healthcare since the vast majority of pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc graduate students are women.
It's true, the increase in affluence in America has increased agency and the freedom to choose fields of study and occupations. And spouses (or not). I would like to see the results of a study that tracks socioeconomic background, especially for girls. My very unscientific observation is that girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to choose stereotypical careers. For example, I have observed that female engineers are more likely to come from a working class background. Is this because of the working class environment that favors work in things-oriented or because of the lower socioeconomic background that is concerned about getting a job? The reasons girls and boys pick a field of study or occupation are often complex, but where they come from certainly plays a part in where they want to go.
One thing that probably reinforces this dynamic is that "Thing Oriented" boys will probably tend to be worse at socialization, and that social bullying probably reinforces a tendency to feel that socialization is pointless and that "Things" are where it's at. Recent tendency to deride "Thing Oriented" young men as potential "Tech Bros" (derogatory connotation) for instance, probably results on the margin in a bit of social withdrawl and more "Thing" focus.
Conversely girls who have a nerdy interest in "Things" tend to be lauded by the present day culture as heroic ("Brave girl breaks down misogynistic barriers")... which probably results in a more positive orientation towards people, and then a shift towards interest in actually doing work that's "Person Oriented". (Perhaps managing within STEM rather than doing the actual work). The goal of setting up organisations and generally praising girls for showing "Thing Orientation" probably has some of these self defeating aspects where it causes them to become more generally social and less "Thing Oriented".
Speculatively I expect this is a dynamic in migration too; foreign born parents tend to specialize themselves in technical work to avoid interpersonal elements, and then this rubs off in aspirations and success frames for children, and this leads to an enrichment in STEM or at the blue collar level construction and stuff. (For an equal level of education)... Which then fades within a couple generations. But I bet this dynamic erodes more quickly now, due to the new xenophilic norms that make much bigger allowances for foreign born linguistic problems and so result in changes that reflect natural interest patterns a lot more.
Policymakers should have some guts: mandate occupations at the individual level.
Why all the pussyfooting around? Equity is too important.