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> We would expect to see even lower rates of women in STEM. The data shows an inverse relationship between women gaining more rights and resources and women's r

• manfredo 7y ago
  > That's just disingenuous, we literally don't have that data to make any claims on it. You're the one which said you'd expect women participation rates to be randomised, as in some countries to have more women in STEM than men. I simply counterpointed with the fact that societies aren't randomised, they are all patriarchal on some level, that's why you never see more women in tech in any country. The core thesis of the article posted is that societies that are more egalitarian - closer to "matriarchy" - on average have less female representation in tech. The more countries drift away from "patriarchy" and towards "matriarchy" the fewer women go into tech. > Oh, so your correlation that stricter gender roles and women getting into STEM is not true? Did you just prove yourself wrong?! Many of these countries are more egalitarian than the US as per the data in the original post. Perhaps you should not have assumed that all Eastern European countries are less egalitarian than the US. > Also, Romania, Bulgaria and Russia have higher participation rates than the US... It's almost like your alleged correlation is BS and random, even within similar countries and cultures. The correlation is between gender equality and women's representation in tech. Yes, the rates of women in tech in Eastern European countries varies because different Eastern European countries have different levels of gender equality. You're the one who erroneously claimed that "Eastern Europe and India have similar rates of participation but are vastly different societies" when in fact Eastern European countries have a variety of rates of women in tech, many of which are lower than the United States' 25% let alone India's 30%. I agree, the alleged correlation between Eastern Europe and rates of female representation in tech is BS and random - but that was your alleged correlation... But what doesn't vary? The fact that these rates are overwhelmingly in a relatively narrow band between 20-35%. > You're literally reading an article claiming the opposite (with sources) mate. Did you read it?! If this is your takeaway from the article, I would suggest re-reading it. There is some variation across societies - but not much. The overwhelming majority of countries studied had female representation in tech between 15-30%. This is indeed a fairly consistent rate. The slight variation that does exist demonstrates an inverse correlation between women gaining more rights and authority and female representation in tech. > That's like gigantic. It's almost parity in the workplace. How can you dismiss it?! It is nowhere near parity in the workplace. The countries with the greatest gender equality like Finland and Norway have 20% female representation in tech. Countries on the other end of the spectrum like Turkey and Indonesia have 35%. This is still barely over 1/3rd. > The small difference is explained by the difference in labour participation rates. > We already talked about this but it's like you didn't read my comment. I did read your comment, and provided data that demonstrated that differences in labor participation does not hold true. This is factually incorrect. These countries with less gender equality have female labor participation rates that are often the same or higher than the US and other western countries. For example, Indonesia has a female labor participation rate of 52% as compared to the United States' 56%. Vietnam has a female labor participation rate of 76%. It we adjusted its female representation in tech to account for differences in labor participation, the percent of women in tech would go down. Adjusting for this does not explain the difference in representation in tech. Furthermore, even if it were you are erroneously assuming that if more women entered the workforce those women would.
  • throwaway8548 7y ago
    > The more countries drift away from "patriarchy" and towards "matriarchy" the fewer women go into tech. We literally don't have matriarchies, there's no data about it. And I also don't know why you put that in quotes, it's an actual word. > Many of these countries are more egalitarian than the US as per the data in the original post. Perhaps you should not have assumed that all Eastern European countries are less egalitarian than the US. Of really? Which ones? Because Hungary certainly isn't. You just proved yourself wrong and you're not addressing what the core of the argument of what I said. > The fact that these rates are overwhelmingly in a relatively narrow band between 20-35%. > The overwhelming majority of countries studied had female representation in tech between 15-30%. This is indeed a fairly consistent rate. I'm ignoring the fact that you can't even keep your numbers straight within the same comment... It's not consistent at all, it's almost the entire range! And given that close to 0% or 50% is unlikely to happen in any country, that's pretty much where you expect the probability distribution to land anyway. It says nothing. It's like saying unemployment falls between 5-40% in the majority of countries. Well d'oh, it's expected. It says nothing about the health of the countries in questiom. > I agree, the alleged correlation between Eastern Europe and rates of female representation in tech is BS and random - but that was your alleged correlation... Wait, what exactly is your allegation then, if not that? > Countries on the other end of the spectrum like Turkey and Indonesia have 35%. This is still barely over 1/3rd. You're still not addressing the labour participation rates between women and men. You don't get it. > For example, Indonesia has a female labor participation rate of 52% as compared to the United States' 56%. Vietnam has a female labor participation rate of 76%. You're suppressed to compare bergen women and men in the same country. Women's labour participation rate has less than nothing to do with Vietnam. You don't get it. > Adjusting for this does not explain the difference in representation in tech. Yes it would, you just don't know how to adjust for it. > Furthermore, even if it were you are erroneously assuming that if more women entered the workforce those women would. It doesn't matter if they would or not, it won't affect the statistics, you still need to adjust for it.
    • manfredo 7y ago
      > We literally don't have matriarchies, there's no data about it. And I also don't know why you put that in quotes, it's an actual word. We may or may not have matriarchies - a couple countries like Spain do have more women in parliament than men so maybe they fit your definition of a matriarchy. But we do have data on how the female representation in tech varies with respect to increases in women's rights and resources, and the data shows that the more rights and resources women have the less they go into technology. This would indicate that a matriarchy would have among the lowest rates of women in technology. > Of really? Which ones? Because Hungary certainly isn't. You just proved yourself wrong and you're not addressing what the core of the argument of what I said. I did indeed address this. In this comment [1] You had claimed that Eastern Europe has similar shares of women in STEM fields as India, and that this is due to cultural factors. I pointed out that Eastern Europe does not, in fact, have similar rates of women in tech as India - only Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia do. Eastern European countries with lower rates of women in tech as compared to India include: Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Poland, Slovakia, and Croatia (if you consider it Eastern European). Furthermore, your comment rested on the assumption that gender roles in Eastern European countries are monolithic. This is not the case. Hungary, as you pointed out has very low gender equality as does Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Slovenia, on the other hand, is the 5th highest on this list. Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Moldova, and Lithuania have the same or higher ratings for gender equality as the United States. So to recap: 1. Eastern Europe does not similar rates of women in tech than India's 30%, most have lower rates of women in tech than the United States' 25%. 2. Eastern European countries are diverse and have varied degrees of gender equality, they are not a monolith so talking about gender roles in "eastern europe" rests on the false understanding that these countries have the same culture with respect to gender. I pointed out that your argument with respect to Eastern Europe is contradicted by the data we have, and is based on the false notion that women in Eastern Europe have a similar experience with respect to gender equality. This seems like this thoroughly addresses your point, care to explain what you feel is missing? > I'm ignoring the fact that you can't even keep your numbers straight within the same comment. It's not consistent at all, it's almost the entire range! Can you please read the article before posting comments like this? Every country including outliers falls between 15% (Chile) and 41% (Algeria). That's 36%. That's barely over half of the range, let alone "almost the entire range". > And given that close to 0% or 50% is unlikely to happen in any country, that's pretty much where you expect the probability distribution to land anyway. It says nothing. Why? Why wouldn't we expect countries to be 60% women in tech, or 70%, or 80% women in technology? Why do you take it for granted that there won't be any countries with majority women in technology? > Wait, what exactly is your allegation then, if not that? You're the one that originally brought up Eastern Europe and India. You falsely claimed that Eastern Europe has similar rates of women in tech as India, and I pointed out that this is factually incorrect - most Eastern European countries have lower rates of women in technology than India. > You're still not addressing the labour participation rates between women and men. You don't get it. You're suppressed to compare bergen women and men in the same country. Women's labour participation rate has less than nothing to do with Vietnam. You don't get it. What do you mean by adjusting for women's labor participation rate. You say that I'm not doing this correctly, but you neglect to explain what you mean by this. If a country that has 100% female labor participation had 30% women in technology, and another country has 50% labor participation and 15% women in tech then the latter's rate of women in tech is actually the same if you account for labor participation rates. If you insist that the better way is to compare the ratio of men to women in the labor force, here's that data [2]. It does not significantly alter the results. The United States has a ratio of 0.82 female to male. Norway has 0.885 - so its share of women in tech would actually go down even further if we adjust it to match the US. Viet Nam has 0.889. There are some that do have significantly different participation rates. Chile has 0.657, so its share of women in tech would rise by ~20% from 15% to 18% if we made its labor participation ratio the same as the US. Qatar has 0.531 so its ~23% women in tech would rise to 35%. But notice that these adjustments move these countries closer towards the trend line. In other words, adjusting for the differences in labor participation rates makes the inverse relationship between gender equality and women's participation in STEM even stronger. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21786037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21786037 2. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/labour-force-participation-rate-female-male-ratio http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/labour-force-participation-ra...