8 ms·

> I wonder if it's possible that men and women, on average, have differing criteria for choosing careers Not only is this true, it has been fairly exhaustively

> I wonder if it's possible that men and women, on average, have differing criteria for choosing careers Not only is this true, it has been fairly exhaustively researched. > Cross-cultural consistency of sex differences for four traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and male-versus-female-typical occupational preferences. Men and women differed on all four traits. 200,000 participants from 53 nations. > Only sex predicted means for all four traits, and sex predicted trait means much more strongly than did gender equality or the interaction between sex and gender equality. These results suggest that biological factors may contribute to sex differences in personality and that culture plays a negligible to small role in moderating sex differences in personality. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9380-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-008-9380-7

geofft 9y ago
That paper doesn't provide evidence for a biological basis for occupational preferences (which was an online BBC survey for a TV show "Secrets of the Sexes," asking people to self-report how interested they were in 10 professions, many of which are strongly culturally gendered or "male-versus-female-typical" as the author puts it). It seems pretty likely that there's a biological basis for differences in base personality traits and a cultural basis for careers and gender norms; the fact that the author found that sex predicts three personality traits and one career preference isn't really an argument that all four of them are biological. (Also I don't think a single paper counts as "exhaustively researched")
- ghostcluster 9y ago
  Here's a meta-analysis then: http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Men-and-things-women-and-people-A-meta-analysis-of-sex-differences-in-interests.pdf http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Men-and-thing... > Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things–People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = 0.35), Social (d = 0.68), and Conventional (d = 0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. > The present study suggests that interests may play a critical role in gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields.

geofft 9y ago

That paper doesn't provide evidence for a biological basis for occupational preferences (which was an online BBC survey for a TV show "Secrets of the Sexes," asking people to self-report how interested they were in 10 professions, many of which are strongly culturally gendered or "male-versus-female-typical" as the author puts it). It seems pretty likely that there's a biological basis for differences in base personality traits and a cultural basis for careers and gender norms; the fact that the author found that sex predicts three personality traits and one career preference isn't really an argument that all four of them are biological. (Also I don't think a single paper counts as "exhaustively researched")

ghostcluster 9y ago
Here's a meta-analysis then: http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Men-and-things-women-and-people-A-meta-analysis-of-sex-differences-in-interests.pdf http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Men-and-thing... > Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size (d = 0.93) on the Things–People dimension. Men showed stronger Realistic (d = 0.84) and Investigative (d = 0.26) interests, and women showed stronger Artistic (d = 0.35), Social (d = 0.68), and Conventional (d = 0.33) interests. Sex differences favoring men were also found for more specific measures of engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and mathematics (d = 0.34) interests. > The present study suggests that interests may play a critical role in gendered occupational choices and gender disparity in the STEM fields.