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Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

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Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#41

Post by seaknoll »

I wonder how much of this is related to parental leave policy versus generic social safety net. Countries with a strong safety net also have generous maternity leave but are behind on paternity. I imagine that at a large scale this does make many companies slightly less likely to hire women, and families much more likely to have the mother take time away from her job. The ultimate effect, albeit in a warm and fuzzy way, could be to deemphasize women’s careers by normalizing the idea that it’s best if you stay home with the kids.

I don't suppose that this could have a larger effect than the gender inequality in many countries lacking a social safety net, but it could be a contributing factor.

The idea that women, given the choice, generally would rather prioritize motherhood seems totally plausible. If that's the case, it could indicate that we need to think about diversity differently.

But I'm uncomfortable with a side effect that some of these policies could have - subtly pressuring women to focus on motherhood. The solution is complicated though if the mere existence of a good maternity leave policy encourages sexism. Hopefully general parental leave can help address this.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#42

Post by mpweiher »

walshemj wrote: post #17
js8 wrote: post #12

"If governments want to increase women’s participation in STEM, a more effective strategy might be to target the girls who are clearly being lost from the STEM pathway – those for whom science and maths are their best subjects and who enjoy it but still don’t choose it" I don't understand why we should try to make somebody choose a subject they didn't choose to do.

well making Engineering and Science careers as well rewarded and give them the same social status as say the Law, Medicine are might help. Those young women with triple A's beloved of headline writers come exam time are making a rational decision not to go into a field where they are badly paid.

...and the working conditions are generally...sub-par.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#43

Post by reitanqild »

bluewave wrote: post #15

The defensive tone of this article is alarming. If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate folks of today. Disparity in computer science education in Western countries puts women at a massive economic disadvantage and is a major geopolitical risk. Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist and dangerous. Helping drive up the numbers…

> Helping drive up the numbers of women and other underrepresented populations in CS should be a major priority for developed countries.

What if we try to respect womens choices and work to get them better pay for the very important work they actually do, first?

Why is it that nursing or teaching should be paid so much less than software engineering?

Or even worse: why is it so much cooler to be an engineeer like me than a nurse or teacher? The pay can partially be explained by supply/demand (qualified nurses are in high demand but buyers don't seem to be able to pay, at least not here.)

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#44

Post by overcast »

I'll probably face wrath, and hell's fury for this, but maybe, men and women are different. Has forcing STEM upon the female population, driven any more of them towards the discipline? Taking the sampling size of every woman I've ever went on a date with in my 37 years, none of them were interested in anything related. The vast majority were teachers, psychologists, and nurses. Occupations based around nurturing others. One, was a designer/artist. None of the women in my huge family, sister, mother, none of them care about technology fields. My father, and male cousins on the other hand, are in various fields of tech and engineering.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#45

Post by purple-again »

Has anyone ever looked at it from the network effect angle? I’m a software dev because I didn’t like being a CPA and my friend was a tech guy who got me into it.

My wife went into the medical field because her sister turned her onto this speciality that was easy to get into and paid quite well.

I tried to teach my smart wife to program and failed miserably because that’s not how our relationship works.

Most people in even your industry are not die hard passionate live and breathe the code lifestyle types. They show up, work, and go back to their lives.

We all know that ‘in general’ in the USA at least but I’m sure in other countries as well the genders tend to self segregate their peer networks. My close friends are men. Her close friends are women.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#46

Post by aoeusnth1 »

walshemj wrote: post #17
js8 wrote: post #12

"If governments want to increase women’s participation in STEM, a more effective strategy might be to target the girls who are clearly being lost from the STEM pathway – those for whom science and maths are their best subjects and who enjoy it but still don’t choose it" I don't understand why we should try to make somebody choose a subject they didn't choose to do.

well making Engineering and Science careers as well rewarded and give them the same social status as say the Law, Medicine are might help. Those young women with triple A's beloved of headline writers come exam time are making a rational decision not to go into a field where they are badly paid.

Are women more status-seeking than men?

Are women more money-seeking than men?

It seems to me that the assumptions which gave rise to your comment would imply that Wall Street traders should be dominated by women. Why is this not the case, in your opinion?

Would increasing the pay and status of a job increase, or decrease the percentage of women?

Should CEOs be paid more to increase their percentage of women?

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#47

Post by omginternets »

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797617741719

Wonderful. Yet another publicly-funded research project with implications for public policy that is behind a paywall.

I guess I'll never know the details of how "gender equality" was operationalized, and therefore never have an informed interpretation of these data. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#48

Post by psyc »

mpweiher wrote: post #39
psyc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next sentence is: "If we can understand their motivations, then interventions can be designed to help them change their minds." I imagine there is a non-coercive way to try to understand the reasons, and use that to inform counseling of students.

This is so incredibly condescending. People need "counseling" because they don't choose what you think they should choose? How about just respecting people's choices ??

Where I come from, it is extremely standard for high school students to receive friendly counseling about what they want to pursue in college. Most young people I know do not sit in isolation deciding what to do with their lives, without discussing it with any adults.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#49

Post by mikejb »

psyc wrote: post #32
nicolashahn wrote: post #9

I wonder if it's possible that men and women, on average, have differing criteria for choosing careers, and artificially forcing the distributions towards the middle might do more harm than good.

I seem to recall a certain young engineer who wondered about this publicly not long ago, without concealing his identity. It impacted his career.

He said worse than that, IIRC. But his lawsuit will maybe bring more clarity on what he really thinks vs. what might have been mis-written or mis-read in various versions of 'the memo'.

Re: Countries with more gender equality have fewer female STEM grads

#50

Post by cazum »

bluewave wrote: post #15

The defensive tone of this article is alarming. If you don't study computer science now you will likely be in the same boat 30 years from now with illiterate folks of today. Disparity in computer science education in Western countries puts women at a massive economic disadvantage and is a major geopolitical risk. Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist and dangerous. Helping drive up the numbers…

>Arguing that women naturally prefer non-STEM fields is sexist

While I agree with the entirety of your comment, I don't see how this is the case. If the physical differences between human groups cause one to prefer something over the other, how is it disparaging to attempt to validate this hypothesis?

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