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Gender and Career Choice

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Re: Gender and Career Choice

#11

Post by protomyth »

chrisBob wrote: post #8
protomyth wrote: post #6

I'm not sure they really went deep enough to look at the external factors. For instance, the difference as related to pilots can be traced back to the military where most pilots get their training. Also, focusing on one section, here are some interesting stats: Job Stats 2014 http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm total women Preschool and kindergarten teachers 664 K 97.2% Elementary and middle school teachers 3,102 K 8…

I am not sure I understand. You can't major in math and teach middle school math. You have to major in education to teach middle school math.

read the whole set: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c1/c1h.htm - and yes, you can major in both - plus we're talking not even certified.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#12

Post by NTDF9 »

Opportunities to pursue interests != career choice

A lot of things are interesting to a lot of people. That does not mean they are competent in it to make it a viable career.

In other words, even if I "think" I like something, doesn't mean I'm actually going to thrive in that occupation in the real world.

I used to play for local soccer teams. That did not translate to Ronaldo-level paychecks.

Another example: I used to be uber-good at math. Does that mean that I'll survive the stresses of HFT? I don't think that's a guarantee. Those environments are brutal, full of abuse. It is a necessity in those environments. If I (a person, regardless of my gender) cannot survive that environment, I should not be taking that job...and not be expecting to do so either.

I think many women completely miss the point that fairness is just equal opportunity to pursue your interests.

"Just because you are interested" is not reason enough to land those jobs/careers. You need to work for it....just like any other man. Welcome to equality!

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#13

Post by Nadya »

jacalata wrote: post #5
Nadya wrote: post #2

Completely meaningless statistics without factoring in the experience and education of the people surveyed. It's one thing to say you're interested and another to go through the effort required [0]. I'm interested in being a pilot - but I lack any of the education or credentials to actually become a pilot . So my interest compared to the possibility of employment would be meaningless. How many of the females are inte…

It's not meaningless at all. It directly refutes the constant argument that "women don't do engineering because they aren't interested in it".

With a majority of majors going to Health professions, Psychology, English, Biology, Arts, Social Sciences, etc and few going to Engineering. It's not a big surprise that, although many claim an "interest" in Engineering that many are also unqualified to hold a position as an Engineer [0].

Having an interest in something and being qualified for the position are two entirely different things. Being qualified has a large factor in whether or not you get a job related to your interest.

[0] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor...

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#14

Post by exarch »

>the correlation between the mix of men and women in a career with the self-reported interest in that career is 0.56

Low quality research detected. Self-reported interest in a trendy subject is a poor way to evaluate genuine dedicated interest in that subject.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#15

Post by exarch »

jacalata wrote: post #5
Nadya wrote: post #2

Completely meaningless statistics without factoring in the experience and education of the people surveyed. It's one thing to say you're interested and another to go through the effort required [0]. I'm interested in being a pilot - but I lack any of the education or credentials to actually become a pilot . So my interest compared to the possibility of employment would be meaningless. How many of the females are inte…

It's not meaningless at all. It directly refutes the constant argument that "women don't do engineering because they aren't interested in it".

Not if the only measure of interest used is literally self-reporting a binary "interested/not interested", like it is here. This is deceptioneering through statistics.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#16

Post by SolaceQuantum »

Nadya wrote: post #4
steveklabnik wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So my interest compared to the possibility of employment > would be meaningless. I haven't really read the article yet, but this isn't true, depending on what they're actually measuring. For example, if people who are interested in the field are systemically denied access to the education to actually get into that field, this kind of measurement would account for that, no? It's hard to measure the right thing.

>Now, whether or not their choice of education (and thus chance of employment) was due to a gender bias or gender discrimination is another question. I later clarified that I don't discard that line of reasoning. E: I will further clarify that I don't personally think this is the case though. Roughly 30% more women are attending tertiary education than men (at least in the US and other "western world" nations) and th…

But is any of that education actually resulting in changes in the income of women and career projections in comparison with equally or less-educated men?

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#18

Post by nickff »

This post would be much more informative and useful if similar statistics were included for men. If the porportion interested in a subject, but not entering it (versus the porportion interested and entering it) was higher for one gender than the other, then it would suggest that one gender faced more difficulties in attaining success in that field than the other. If the proportion of one gender with (similar) credentials in a given field, but without employment in this specific field (which they have a stated desire for), then it would even stronger evidence that there were some obstacles with gender-specific impacts.

From what I can understand of this piece's evidence, it only shows that many women want to be civil engineers, but do not go into that field. Anecdotally, I know many men who would have liked to be engineers, and did not succeed. I am left wondering whether there are a large number of men and women who would have liked to go through years of agony in post-secondary education, to end up in front of a computer all day with few social interactions; if so, what are the differences in preferences, dedication, and outcomes for the genders (as there are likely to be many).

edit: It would also be interesting to see the impact of age on preferences and employment, to see whether younger women were more likely to achieve their preferred employment, and whether preferences varied with age.

edit2: It would also be useful to know how many careers each individual 'liked'. It is possible that (of the population surveyed) one gender 'liked' more jobs than the other, and so is less likely to be employed in any specific 'liked' career.

*I initially misunderstood the data presented in the article (see brighteyes' comment below), but would still like to see the gender separated data for interest, credentialling, and employment.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#19

Post by brighteyes »

This is definitely very interesting data. But there are several issues with the analysis:

> Using a statistical measure called r-squared, we determined that the male/female mix within a career is on average about 31% explained by the fact that men and women have different interests. What this means is that about two-thirds of discrimination is explained by other factors.

Not "discrimination" in that last sentence, but "difference". Perhaps this was unintentional, and "discrimination" is meant in some obtuse technical sense. But to most people "discrimination" means intentionally unfair treatment. The data they show - again, very interesting data - does not show anything about discrimination.

edit: a second major issue is that they don't normalize the likes, or at least don't mention that they do. The likes are not limited, in other words, one can like 1,000 careers, and work in just 1. That would appear to show that person wanted to work in all those careers, but didn't, showing a "gap".

A more normalized measure could let each person only like one career, say. Again, maybe they did this, but it isn't stated, and generally "likes" are not limited.

Re: Gender and Career Choice

#20

Post by oldmanjay »

ackim wrote: post #10

I question the credibility of this article. There are factors missing in this analysis, education for instance. I am also weary of an article based on `self-reported interest.`

Out of curiosity, how would one measure interest without self-reporting? Constant surveillance to make sure women aren't secretly reading Dr Dobbs (RIP) in an incognito browser window while filling their history with TMZ?
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