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Girls’ comparative advantage in reading can largely explain the STEM gender gap
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tenkabuto 7y agoAm I correct in interpreting this as that among 15-year-olds, girls and boys are about equally skilled at doing math, but girls are even more skilled at doing reading than boys are, so it's relatively inefficient for girls to do math-oriented tasks instead of reading-oriented tasks. With the relative inefficiency might come relative unprofitability, and if the girls perceive and/or anticipate that doing reading-oriented tasks would be more profitable for them, they choose to participate in the market for reading-oriented labor (self-select into that market).
- tantalor 7y agoFrom the students who are good at math (assuming equally girls & boys) only* girls can elect to pursue reading instead, leaving behind a gender gap in math fields. * biased towards girls
- hshwhdifyhd 7y agoYou are not no. That could certainly be a game theory view of what's been presented but as far as explaining the decision making of the actual participants it's not correct.
- tree3 7y agoWould you like to explain what is correct, then?
- orev 7y agoI don’t buy into the rational/market/economics style theory that people choose to do tasks based on what they think will be more profitable. People choose to do things because they enjoy doing them, and people enjoy doing things more when they’re good at the task. If girls have better language skills, they will naturally gravitate to those kinds of tasks because they like them better, which will reinforce their skills, in a cycle. The same can be said for boys who like to do things and naturally gravitate to/reinforce those skills. Eventually you have people who are good at doing different things, because the initial advantage/preference gave them a tendency to move in a particular direction.
- t0ughcritic 7y agoWhy aren’t there more Female lawyers or politicians then... Not sure if this totally holds up
- loopz 7y agoYou can also ask why not more female top leaders and top investors. Females are so reputed to be competitive by nature..
- braindouche 7y agofemale law school graduates have outnumbered male law school graduates for a couple of years now. The future is here already, they're just in junior positions.
- aklemm 7y agoBut definitely it’s the girls’ fault, am I right?
- tree3 7y agoUnfortunately, I don't see anyone pushing to improve boys' reading skills.
- lykr0n 7y agoYep. We're all focused on lifting up girls, but ignore the suffering of the boys because ... some perverted ideology.
- gnat 7y agoWe suspected this at our primary school: across gender and ethnicity divisions, STEM and literacy scores were highly correlated.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Girls’ comparative advantage in reading can largely explain the STEM gender gap It can't explain why math-intensive fields like biochemistry are not male dominated (with roughly equal distribution between genders for degrees), but the less-math-intensive, more-human-interaction centered people management positions in those fields are disproportionately (given the total population of the fields) male.
- amai 7y agoHow does this explain that the stem gender gap is different in different countries? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/gender-equality-in-stem-is-possible/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/gender-equality-in-st...
- hnlurker 7y agobecause in poor countries, women must choose what pays most.. stem. in rich countries, they can choose what they enjoy.