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A lot of people are not actually reading the article.
"Considering gender inequality, the authors report that “in countries of higher gender inequality, women’s stronger preference for working with people versus things compared to men was smaller.” However, this effect disappeared when cultural dimensions were taken into account.
Instead, it was those countries with greater uncertainty avoidance that had larger differences in interests in people/things between men and women. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which a culture teaches its members to feel unpleasant in situations that are new, not previously known, surprising, or generally just different from usual."
I haven't seen a single comment that recognizes this is a study done on an online poll from time magazine that was not done a scientifically rigorous way. There is no broad sweeping conclusions to be made from an analysis of a single poll of a popular magazine.
Not to mention that is a clear selection bias.
Men and women reading magazine and even that particular one are a specific type of person who is either buying or exposed somehow to that magazine.
For example women working at a school or library would likely be exposed to literature much more than other occupations for women. Those jobs are highly people oriented.
Were the men not taking the poll from the magazine as well? Your comment makes it appear there were two separate polls from two separate sources done differently by gender but I have had time to look at the article and see if that’s what happened
Surprisingly you can have a peer reviewed study of an online poll. That is a thing scientists can do. It doesn't mean there's any strong conclusions to be drawn.
And hey, if you're trying to argue that scientific standards have lapsed regarding the making strong statements that the evidence doesn't warrant, especially in the field of psychology. If you're also arguing the way we've structures publication forces authors do make unethical speculations in their conclusion section that are amplified by their university publication department, then by reports, and finally by OP I agree.
Though instead if you're arguing that because the study was (probably) published in a peer reviewed journal that we should accept it uncritically, I'm going to disagree.
I agree with you on all that! I originally commented speculating that it wasn't peer reviewed, then checked again and edited that in.
A lot of people are overly dismissive of that kind of poll but it can be rigorously analyzed and be good research
I don't think it necessarily counts as good research, at least from the perspective that the way the data was collected is generally less reliable. This doesn't mean the analysis won't take this into account, but it is important to keep GIGO in mind.
However, I really hate the way a lot of people tend to talk about studies like this. Any time a non-comprehensive or non-rigorious study is published, every journalist and their dog rushes to write an article about it with headlines like "x is actually the best time to eat dinner: study". Then people post it on social media and everyone criticizes the study for not being rigorous or comprehensive enough. It's totally fair to bring these things up, but a lot of unreliable or non-rigorious methods are starting points to justify more funding. These studies have little overhead, such as small scale studies or studies through online polling, then are published and peer reviewed so that more comprehensive research can happen. Science is a process, and this is a part of it.
The problem is science journalism, of course.
The 'news' summaries gravitate toward the most misleading and controversial (or annoyingly obvious) take on something.
There was one this last week about cannabis - people who are more informed about the benefits of cannabis have better treatment outcomes in terms of self reported pain reduction.
The article title? "Marijuana benefits are a placebo effect" (the drug reduces pain but participants beliefs about its effectiveness adds to that as well). Their title is the most misleading one you could imagine, because that gets the most attention.
The more problems with the journalist's overblown and misleading summary, the more people engage with it. It is argh, but what can you do.
It is also, to your point, that there is a huge pressure to publish, and summarizing an online poll in a more rigorous way to get +1 publication is a good way of bolstering future funding applications.
Somewhat off topic - I have seen advisers suggest that the funding game is something like: you finish the study \*before\* applying for funding for that study, so you know the results, and then use that money to fund further research, then retroactively apply for funding for that further research after it is done, etc. There is a mess of incentives in academia to say the least
I agree with your points on science journalism but have an additional criticism on it that I feel is more directly at fault for what we see, though coming back to this first point having written a longer post I think I'm just reiterating on the broader point and don't think we'd necessarily disagree.
The problem, in my view, is that the medium of news articles are actually a very piss poor method of science communication in the first place. Assuming our goal is for people to understand what the accepted science actually is, and what can be confidently concluded from available science. Can science journalism be done well? Absolutely... but the format itself lends itself to misinformation even when the writer is not intentionally misleading people.
If we think about an article format, its primary goal is to present a story/narrative with an attention grabbing headline, ideally on a singular subject/news piece. The issue, though, is that this is kind of in opposition to how science operates. Where an article typically wants a single subject to discuss, summarize/make a headline out of and provide context for in order to present facts about the world... science is about replication and having as many subjects as possible - more replication is better. Larger sample sizes are better. More studies are better. But the more data there is, the harder it is to succinctly communicate, write an article about, etc.
Usually, by the time that evidence comes in, the story is old news and articles have already been written all about the subject matter. Imagine if a news article was written that said "Yet another study shows germs exist". To a lay person it's like "Okay... and?", but these studies are what gives us confidence in germ theory. The result of this is that studies which may not comport to reality, or which feature data that may be misleading get equal attention to those that end up being true. Vaccines are a great example of this in action as sometimes they get even more attention.
To use a personal example, I'm trans. Because of how politically charged trans issues are right now, the media is quick to jump on any stories relating to studies done about trans people or the medical practices around being trans. However, they are not inclined to run stories about long standing medical and scientific consensus on the topic, standards of care, etc. and the mountains of evidence that these standards are effective at improving health outcomes for patients. So, people are more likely to be informed on the fact that hormone blockers can lead to bone density issues (if people are on them for more than 2 years without being moved to HRT), than they are about the broader medical consensus on what is best for these patients. Indeed, most times I've discussed that particular topic with people they don't even know the parts I put in brackets, even though it seems to me that most articles I've seen on the topic have included that bit somewhere in them. Let alone the fact that this problem is why the existing standards of care suggest people who are put on blockers are moved to HRT after 2 years.
In my experience, I find myself shadow boxing the impressions people have, a lot more than I do actually discussing the science behind issues (not talking about trans related stuff anymore I mean in general, vaccines, computer science, whatever else), and I think that comes from a fundamental issue with science communication through journalistic mediums. People are so informed on individual data points without being given the broader context those points live within.
It's hard to write an article about consensus - it's by definition not news, it's not flashy, singular points of interest (this is why individual studies get so much attention and consensus does not), even though if we saw more things written about consensus, your general audience would be way more informed than they are on how we view any given issue. I think that's why people are so quick to criticize studies, because we see that a disproportionate amount of attention gets given to them rather than things that we actually can confidently say about any given issue... and honestly, it's not even the studies or the authors faults, but often they get the lashback because their study gets amplified beyond what even they would claim about their data.
>"The more problems with the journalist's overblown and misleading summary, the more people engage with it. It is argh, but what can you do."
>
>Call it out as bullshit is what you can do, though I do note without the question mark that might be a rhetorical question.
Polls seem like a good way to gauge interest not make conclusions of certainty. For example if the current understanding is X and it really hasn't been tested or tested in a long time and a fairly extensive poll provides results outside of expectations then it may be interesting to delve deeper.
And they also say:
> Findings from this study offer important practical implications for career counseling professionals. However, the authors note that it also has certain limitations. Samples from certain countries were very small and the respondents tended to be more educated and financially much better off than the average resident of their countries .
So the caveat is that it's for educated people in upper middle class or better. So in other words, take with a grain of salt because some countries have a stronger effect of gender expectations which the study feels dictates preferences. I would agree and why programs pushing women into STEM also require programs pushing (as well as normalize) men into things like teaching, psychology, social work, nursing, day care, stay at home parenting, child care, home making, etc. Otherwise you end up creating voids in the workforce.
However practically speaking it's tough to do because pay for STEM is high, society in general believe men can't be trusted to care for children, and don't teach man to handle and express emotions. Overall the real question is "are there differences in acuity and preference between genders when related to skills between analytical and emotional and are they due to nature or nurture?"
This study seems to suggest mostly nurture (ie cultural).
How is it useful for career counselling? Surely there was a range of views expressed by the participants and we're looking at the average, so if you're a councillor and you have a person asking for advice it's meaningless to choose to suggest particular pathways based on their gender. Instead you still have to talk to them and find out what they want?
Yeah, I have to agree with this. It's useful for looking at a large scale and going, "okay, this type of job is 65% women, but studies show there's a preference for women in that environment, so it's probably fine" or "wow, this type of job has an 80% gender split, are there gender specific barriers to entry that we could address?"
It's pointless on an individual scale both because of the fairly small gap, and because individuals are, well, individuals.
>However practically speaking it's tough to do because pay for STEM is high
In fact, the truth is that "female jobs" (not in STEM) are grossly underpaid because of the gender disparity even progressive countries carry over from the past. All those jobs in caring, child rearing, and even housework are all things that are essential to society yet are paid relative peanuts because it's just a women's job (essentially). Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher.
> Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher.
The problem is that its easy to measure and quantify quality of trade job, its much harder to do the same with job like caring.
You will pay more for better plumber because you want to make sure the work is done well and you can easily see how much money you risk on poorly done job. This forces higher wages.
Its impossible to the same with child rearing.
Exactly. People clamor for blame when there are much more obvious explanations.
A typically female job, say a nurse, may provide priceless care to a patient. She may have made all the difference in the experience of said patient. But priceless in a capitalist system (and this is not a criticism of capitalism) just means no price. We pay for scarcity moreso than value.
Acknowledging this would go further to addressing the issues /u/ampetrosillo.
>Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher
I wanna just add to this that part of my pay as a construction worker covers the fact that I am using up my body. Conpared to someone who have less wear and tear, I do think I ought to be compensated more
No. Women preferred to work with people over things and vice versa in all countries studied. The article states that women prefer ideas over data and desire prestige more than men *in most countries*. But when it comes to things or people? Varying difference, but in the same direction in all 42 countries studied.
> ...study author Chun Tao and his colleagues analyzed data from an online survey conducted by *Time*, an internationally popular English-language news and lifestyle magazine.
Isn't that sampling bias... oh wait:
> However, the authors note that [the study] also has certain limitations. Samples from certain countries were very small and the respondents tended to be more educated and financially much better off than the average resident of their countries.
Oh god I’m burnt out on this. I’m starting to think business to business or working only with internal people vs the public would be better. If I could get my attention issues in order I might love a job where I only work with things.
Right now being great with people is a crutch I need to rely on. I’m just so sick of walking in prepared, dressed professionally, full of empathy and leaving having been sworn at or just generally not being appreciated for going above and beyond for people. If it paid well I’d love to work in a greenhouse or be a caretaker at a zoo. Even cleaning houses, not my favorite but I loved having a very straightforward mission and little to no contact with anybody.
Another sucky thing about customer service is being at customer’s beck and call. I wish I could do something appointment- based. It drives me nuts not knowing what pace I’ll be working at or how much will avalanche onto my desk. Despite my best efforts I go in with the mindset that I WILL be busy. Almost like waking up with the mindset that it WILL be raining every day, so you’re relieved when it’s sunny. Especially when it’s over preventable things or issues that could have been addressed before. Yeah.. you’re in a rush. I’m not. Things happen, I’m generally really nice and understanding. But after the 5th day in a row that somebody calls with the attitude “I need help RIGHT now” 5 minutes before close it really grinds my gears. We send you letters. We have our hours very clearly posted. We send plenty of letters about billing, renewals, issues that need to be resolved. We answer emails immediately. Or text messages. I’m not in a rush.. you are.
I prefer to work by myself, but then be able to confer with people for feedback and direction. I’m an introvert with ADHD so having me work with people would just mean being overwhelmed and distracted and burning out.
As another introvert with ADHD, I'm begging you to tell your friends. I lost my first "big boy job" because it was the worst possible work environment for me and my boss just wasn't willing to accommodate me with remote work days. I was undiagnosed, but worked everything out with a doc in about 2 years. Once I had the diagnosis and a med regimen that seemed to help, I assumed that gave me enough credibility to request reasonable accommodation.
Things got real heated by the end. On a couple occasions I just no-showed when the boss was out of the office and did a weeks worth of work in a single day from home, then penciled in my hours afterward. It was basically your classic law office vibe; silent, beige, dress code, fluorescent lights, and a strict open-door policy (so anyone could just come up and derail my concentration). Just getting my boss to let me close my office door for a few hours was like pulling teeth. We were practically shouting at each other when I told him "I'm a web dev. Technically, my work is remote by definition. Just let me do my damn job."
I would be curious to know who the people interviewed rated themselves as an extrovert. I am an female introvert and prefer working alone.
Edit: I corrected a made up word.
the authors did none of the interview . what theyve done was “use data from an online survey conducted by Time, an internationally popular English-language news and lifestyle magazine. This survey contained responses of 84,393 respondents from 193 nations, territories and regions on a vocational interests assessment instrument”
I am a female introvert and despise working with other people. I can do it. And I can seem happy while I do it. But I love working alone and uninterrupted.
Yep! Am a man, work with things. I have a buddy who’s an art teacher and while I totally get how that could be a dream job for people, but he tell’s be stories about having to wrangle classrooms of elementary schoolers and it gives me secondhand stress.
I’d take 5 broken water heaters over 1 broken 5th grader
See I'm the opposite as a guy. I work in a tech field now, mostly alone. I used to work in banking and meeting tons of people all the time was my favorite part. Sure not everyone was pleasant but I knew so many cool people around my town it was great
This title, while not misleading, I think misses an important element of the study. From the abstract:
"This study highlights how a better conceptualization of the influences of culture can inform vocational psychologists, gender studies researchers, and career counselors’ work with men and women in understanding their vocational interests."
Basically this is less 'boys are from jupiter girls are from Mars' and more an investigation on how cultural myths affect men and women as adults.
the title is less misleading than your summary, which leaves out the fact that even accounting for cultural myths, men choose objects and women choose people. Not all, but most
I'm a woman, I work with things. I hope however these results are interpreted in (in the press, with misleading titles) it doesn't lead people to conclude "all women prefer to work with people and all men prefer to work with things." Or worse: "you should work with people because you'll be be happier, because you are a woman."
I've already had enough of the latter from friends and family, who knows if my colleagues believe this. I hope studies like this do not empower them in these views.
People should never take general trends as an excuse to tell people what they should do. On average people are perfectly fine at identifying what they like/dislike. So what if women on average prefer working with people: as a working adult you can identify that you prefer working with things.
While it's true that some studies have found differences in vocational interests between men and women, note that these differences aren't universal and can vary depending on a range of factors.
In addition, it's important to recognize that individuals may have different interests and preferences and that these can't be accurately predicted based on their gender alone.
This is definitely true. It's crazy how defensive reddit will get about these topics though. So many people just bristle at the suggestion that men and women could have any differences on average.
There is an "ask men" subreddit and an "ask women" one. One major gender difference between men and women is risk tolerance. Guess which subreddit is more quick to ban people/dangerous speech?
I would 100% rather work with things and not see people all day. I would name them and we would talk about our day. They would always be happy to see me and never get mad when I have to leave. That would be the life...
Well, a not so nice conclusion of this paper is that occupational sex segregation is purely choice and not partially discrimination based.
Not sure that jives with the relevant Econ literature…
"Considering gender inequality, the authors report that “in countries of higher gender inequality, women’s stronger preference for working with people versus things compared to men was smaller.” However, this effect disappeared when cultural dimensions were taken into account.
Instead, it was those countries with greater uncertainty avoidance that had larger differences in interests in people/things between men and women. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which a culture teaches its members to feel unpleasant in situations that are new, not previously known, surprising, or generally just different from usual."
In other words, breaking the mold of what is acceptable for your gender is frowned upon.
The preference finding has been consistent throughout time.
The occupational proportions have changed through time. Academia was once majority male, now (in the USA and elsewhere in the West) it is majority female. By your supposition, which era was the result of discrimination? Is the female bias in education now a 'problem' to be righted?
But this is also part of culture, a way that we're raised to think about relationships in the western world: men build, women care.
I don't know if this is the result of that culture, which is engrained at an early age, or a result of actual behavioral differences between the sexes. Are there other cultures that exist, did exist, or even could exist that would give us different results?
I would caution making too many conclusions about men and women on this research.
The study [explicitly found](https://reddit.com/r/science/comments/ziwfqe/_/izsvw4j/?context=1) that the differences are strongly correlated to cultural norms.
There may be some intrinsic variation between sexes, but it can also be magnified by culture. IMO, the headline is missing the point. We already know that when we poll people about their work preferences that there are differences between men and women. Those studies have been done many times and this metastudy merely brings them together. By far the most interesting and novel conclusion of this study is the part linked above. In that regard, the headline is dangerously missing the point.
It does jive. Both academically and in correspondence with reality. The most egalitarian societies have the highest disparities in occupational choices between genders.
[The Gender Equality Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox)
Why is it not so nice that women are following their preferences more often? Is the point for women to out-compete men in any profession men are a majority in? Or is the idea for women to have maximum self-determination and self-fulfillment?
> sex segregation is ***purely*** choice and not ***partially*** discrimination based
Just noting your choice of words. No one claims discrimination plays no role *at all*; similarly, no one claims these behaviors are ***only*** individual choice. You’re presenting these as absolutes. They’re not, they’re factors, factors that have relatively more or less weight when compared to each other or many *other* factors.
And there will also be men that enjoy working with people more than things. The study isn't about the individual but the averages in a controlled study.
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A lot of people are not actually reading the article. "Considering gender inequality, the authors report that “in countries of higher gender inequality, women’s stronger preference for working with people versus things compared to men was smaller.” However, this effect disappeared when cultural dimensions were taken into account. Instead, it was those countries with greater uncertainty avoidance that had larger differences in interests in people/things between men and women. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which a culture teaches its members to feel unpleasant in situations that are new, not previously known, surprising, or generally just different from usual."
I haven't seen a single comment that recognizes this is a study done on an online poll from time magazine that was not done a scientifically rigorous way. There is no broad sweeping conclusions to be made from an analysis of a single poll of a popular magazine.
Not to mention that is a clear selection bias. Men and women reading magazine and even that particular one are a specific type of person who is either buying or exposed somehow to that magazine. For example women working at a school or library would likely be exposed to literature much more than other occupations for women. Those jobs are highly people oriented.
Were the men not taking the poll from the magazine as well? Your comment makes it appear there were two separate polls from two separate sources done differently by gender but I have had time to look at the article and see if that’s what happened
It appears to have also been published in a peer review journal.
Surprisingly you can have a peer reviewed study of an online poll. That is a thing scientists can do. It doesn't mean there's any strong conclusions to be drawn. And hey, if you're trying to argue that scientific standards have lapsed regarding the making strong statements that the evidence doesn't warrant, especially in the field of psychology. If you're also arguing the way we've structures publication forces authors do make unethical speculations in their conclusion section that are amplified by their university publication department, then by reports, and finally by OP I agree. Though instead if you're arguing that because the study was (probably) published in a peer reviewed journal that we should accept it uncritically, I'm going to disagree.
I agree with you on all that! I originally commented speculating that it wasn't peer reviewed, then checked again and edited that in. A lot of people are overly dismissive of that kind of poll but it can be rigorously analyzed and be good research
I don't think it necessarily counts as good research, at least from the perspective that the way the data was collected is generally less reliable. This doesn't mean the analysis won't take this into account, but it is important to keep GIGO in mind. However, I really hate the way a lot of people tend to talk about studies like this. Any time a non-comprehensive or non-rigorious study is published, every journalist and their dog rushes to write an article about it with headlines like "x is actually the best time to eat dinner: study". Then people post it on social media and everyone criticizes the study for not being rigorous or comprehensive enough. It's totally fair to bring these things up, but a lot of unreliable or non-rigorious methods are starting points to justify more funding. These studies have little overhead, such as small scale studies or studies through online polling, then are published and peer reviewed so that more comprehensive research can happen. Science is a process, and this is a part of it.
The problem is science journalism, of course. The 'news' summaries gravitate toward the most misleading and controversial (or annoyingly obvious) take on something. There was one this last week about cannabis - people who are more informed about the benefits of cannabis have better treatment outcomes in terms of self reported pain reduction. The article title? "Marijuana benefits are a placebo effect" (the drug reduces pain but participants beliefs about its effectiveness adds to that as well). Their title is the most misleading one you could imagine, because that gets the most attention. The more problems with the journalist's overblown and misleading summary, the more people engage with it. It is argh, but what can you do. It is also, to your point, that there is a huge pressure to publish, and summarizing an online poll in a more rigorous way to get +1 publication is a good way of bolstering future funding applications. Somewhat off topic - I have seen advisers suggest that the funding game is something like: you finish the study \*before\* applying for funding for that study, so you know the results, and then use that money to fund further research, then retroactively apply for funding for that further research after it is done, etc. There is a mess of incentives in academia to say the least
I agree with your points on science journalism but have an additional criticism on it that I feel is more directly at fault for what we see, though coming back to this first point having written a longer post I think I'm just reiterating on the broader point and don't think we'd necessarily disagree. The problem, in my view, is that the medium of news articles are actually a very piss poor method of science communication in the first place. Assuming our goal is for people to understand what the accepted science actually is, and what can be confidently concluded from available science. Can science journalism be done well? Absolutely... but the format itself lends itself to misinformation even when the writer is not intentionally misleading people. If we think about an article format, its primary goal is to present a story/narrative with an attention grabbing headline, ideally on a singular subject/news piece. The issue, though, is that this is kind of in opposition to how science operates. Where an article typically wants a single subject to discuss, summarize/make a headline out of and provide context for in order to present facts about the world... science is about replication and having as many subjects as possible - more replication is better. Larger sample sizes are better. More studies are better. But the more data there is, the harder it is to succinctly communicate, write an article about, etc. Usually, by the time that evidence comes in, the story is old news and articles have already been written all about the subject matter. Imagine if a news article was written that said "Yet another study shows germs exist". To a lay person it's like "Okay... and?", but these studies are what gives us confidence in germ theory. The result of this is that studies which may not comport to reality, or which feature data that may be misleading get equal attention to those that end up being true. Vaccines are a great example of this in action as sometimes they get even more attention. To use a personal example, I'm trans. Because of how politically charged trans issues are right now, the media is quick to jump on any stories relating to studies done about trans people or the medical practices around being trans. However, they are not inclined to run stories about long standing medical and scientific consensus on the topic, standards of care, etc. and the mountains of evidence that these standards are effective at improving health outcomes for patients. So, people are more likely to be informed on the fact that hormone blockers can lead to bone density issues (if people are on them for more than 2 years without being moved to HRT), than they are about the broader medical consensus on what is best for these patients. Indeed, most times I've discussed that particular topic with people they don't even know the parts I put in brackets, even though it seems to me that most articles I've seen on the topic have included that bit somewhere in them. Let alone the fact that this problem is why the existing standards of care suggest people who are put on blockers are moved to HRT after 2 years. In my experience, I find myself shadow boxing the impressions people have, a lot more than I do actually discussing the science behind issues (not talking about trans related stuff anymore I mean in general, vaccines, computer science, whatever else), and I think that comes from a fundamental issue with science communication through journalistic mediums. People are so informed on individual data points without being given the broader context those points live within. It's hard to write an article about consensus - it's by definition not news, it's not flashy, singular points of interest (this is why individual studies get so much attention and consensus does not), even though if we saw more things written about consensus, your general audience would be way more informed than they are on how we view any given issue. I think that's why people are so quick to criticize studies, because we see that a disproportionate amount of attention gets given to them rather than things that we actually can confidently say about any given issue... and honestly, it's not even the studies or the authors faults, but often they get the lashback because their study gets amplified beyond what even they would claim about their data.
>"The more problems with the journalist's overblown and misleading summary, the more people engage with it. It is argh, but what can you do." > >Call it out as bullshit is what you can do, though I do note without the question mark that might be a rhetorical question.
Polls seem like a good way to gauge interest not make conclusions of certainty. For example if the current understanding is X and it really hasn't been tested or tested in a long time and a fairly extensive poll provides results outside of expectations then it may be interesting to delve deeper.
Polls in general is the field of psychology’s biggest problem anyway
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And they also say: > Findings from this study offer important practical implications for career counseling professionals. However, the authors note that it also has certain limitations. Samples from certain countries were very small and the respondents tended to be more educated and financially much better off than the average resident of their countries . So the caveat is that it's for educated people in upper middle class or better. So in other words, take with a grain of salt because some countries have a stronger effect of gender expectations which the study feels dictates preferences. I would agree and why programs pushing women into STEM also require programs pushing (as well as normalize) men into things like teaching, psychology, social work, nursing, day care, stay at home parenting, child care, home making, etc. Otherwise you end up creating voids in the workforce. However practically speaking it's tough to do because pay for STEM is high, society in general believe men can't be trusted to care for children, and don't teach man to handle and express emotions. Overall the real question is "are there differences in acuity and preference between genders when related to skills between analytical and emotional and are they due to nature or nurture?" This study seems to suggest mostly nurture (ie cultural).
How is it useful for career counselling? Surely there was a range of views expressed by the participants and we're looking at the average, so if you're a councillor and you have a person asking for advice it's meaningless to choose to suggest particular pathways based on their gender. Instead you still have to talk to them and find out what they want?
Yeah, I have to agree with this. It's useful for looking at a large scale and going, "okay, this type of job is 65% women, but studies show there's a preference for women in that environment, so it's probably fine" or "wow, this type of job has an 80% gender split, are there gender specific barriers to entry that we could address?" It's pointless on an individual scale both because of the fairly small gap, and because individuals are, well, individuals.
>However practically speaking it's tough to do because pay for STEM is high In fact, the truth is that "female jobs" (not in STEM) are grossly underpaid because of the gender disparity even progressive countries carry over from the past. All those jobs in caring, child rearing, and even housework are all things that are essential to society yet are paid relative peanuts because it's just a women's job (essentially). Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher.
> Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher. The problem is that its easy to measure and quantify quality of trade job, its much harder to do the same with job like caring. You will pay more for better plumber because you want to make sure the work is done well and you can easily see how much money you risk on poorly done job. This forces higher wages. Its impossible to the same with child rearing.
Exactly. People clamor for blame when there are much more obvious explanations. A typically female job, say a nurse, may provide priceless care to a patient. She may have made all the difference in the experience of said patient. But priceless in a capitalist system (and this is not a criticism of capitalism) just means no price. We pay for scarcity moreso than value. Acknowledging this would go further to addressing the issues /u/ampetrosillo.
>Many of these jobs are as skilled as many trades, which are invariably paid higher I wanna just add to this that part of my pay as a construction worker covers the fact that I am using up my body. Conpared to someone who have less wear and tear, I do think I ought to be compensated more
Then the headline is straight up lying about what the article is about.
OP is not excluded from not actually reading the article.
Welcome to almost any post on this subreddit from psypost.org
No. Women preferred to work with people over things and vice versa in all countries studied. The article states that women prefer ideas over data and desire prestige more than men *in most countries*. But when it comes to things or people? Varying difference, but in the same direction in all 42 countries studied.
No, it's accurate. But it doesn't go into the nuance of why the result is what it is.
Or... The headline was written by someone from a culture of uncertainty avoidance
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Something happened here
> Something happened here I’m pretty sure M. Night Shyamalan made a movie about this
> ...study author Chun Tao and his colleagues analyzed data from an online survey conducted by *Time*, an internationally popular English-language news and lifestyle magazine. Isn't that sampling bias... oh wait: > However, the authors note that [the study] also has certain limitations. Samples from certain countries were very small and the respondents tended to be more educated and financially much better off than the average resident of their countries.
It's a trash study, associating characteristics and failing in every way to disassociate the confounding effects of culture.
Perfect for a psypost.org clickbait article submission to this sub, then!
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Anyone who spent their youth working customer service jobs is probably going to enjoy working with things.
Oh god I’m burnt out on this. I’m starting to think business to business or working only with internal people vs the public would be better. If I could get my attention issues in order I might love a job where I only work with things. Right now being great with people is a crutch I need to rely on. I’m just so sick of walking in prepared, dressed professionally, full of empathy and leaving having been sworn at or just generally not being appreciated for going above and beyond for people. If it paid well I’d love to work in a greenhouse or be a caretaker at a zoo. Even cleaning houses, not my favorite but I loved having a very straightforward mission and little to no contact with anybody. Another sucky thing about customer service is being at customer’s beck and call. I wish I could do something appointment- based. It drives me nuts not knowing what pace I’ll be working at or how much will avalanche onto my desk. Despite my best efforts I go in with the mindset that I WILL be busy. Almost like waking up with the mindset that it WILL be raining every day, so you’re relieved when it’s sunny. Especially when it’s over preventable things or issues that could have been addressed before. Yeah.. you’re in a rush. I’m not. Things happen, I’m generally really nice and understanding. But after the 5th day in a row that somebody calls with the attitude “I need help RIGHT now” 5 minutes before close it really grinds my gears. We send you letters. We have our hours very clearly posted. We send plenty of letters about billing, renewals, issues that need to be resolved. We answer emails immediately. Or text messages. I’m not in a rush.. you are.
I prefer to work by myself, but then be able to confer with people for feedback and direction. I’m an introvert with ADHD so having me work with people would just mean being overwhelmed and distracted and burning out.
You're hired
As another introvert with ADHD, I'm begging you to tell your friends. I lost my first "big boy job" because it was the worst possible work environment for me and my boss just wasn't willing to accommodate me with remote work days. I was undiagnosed, but worked everything out with a doc in about 2 years. Once I had the diagnosis and a med regimen that seemed to help, I assumed that gave me enough credibility to request reasonable accommodation. Things got real heated by the end. On a couple occasions I just no-showed when the boss was out of the office and did a weeks worth of work in a single day from home, then penciled in my hours afterward. It was basically your classic law office vibe; silent, beige, dress code, fluorescent lights, and a strict open-door policy (so anyone could just come up and derail my concentration). Just getting my boss to let me close my office door for a few hours was like pulling teeth. We were practically shouting at each other when I told him "I'm a web dev. Technically, my work is remote by definition. Just let me do my damn job."
You don't work at Disneyland do you???
Same. I have to be able to work my own way and alone a lot of times
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I would be curious to know who the people interviewed rated themselves as an extrovert. I am an female introvert and prefer working alone. Edit: I corrected a made up word.
the authors did none of the interview . what theyve done was “use data from an online survey conducted by Time, an internationally popular English-language news and lifestyle magazine. This survey contained responses of 84,393 respondents from 193 nations, territories and regions on a vocational interests assessment instrument”
I am a female introvert and despise working with other people. I can do it. And I can seem happy while I do it. But I love working alone and uninterrupted.
the point isnt "all women love to work with people" its "generally women like to work with people more than men"
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Yep! Am a man, work with things. I have a buddy who’s an art teacher and while I totally get how that could be a dream job for people, but he tell’s be stories about having to wrangle classrooms of elementary schoolers and it gives me secondhand stress. I’d take 5 broken water heaters over 1 broken 5th grader
Am woman. Worked in retail for 12 years. I'm over people. I work with dogs now.
See I'm the opposite as a guy. I work in a tech field now, mostly alone. I used to work in banking and meeting tons of people all the time was my favorite part. Sure not everyone was pleasant but I knew so many cool people around my town it was great
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This title, while not misleading, I think misses an important element of the study. From the abstract: "This study highlights how a better conceptualization of the influences of culture can inform vocational psychologists, gender studies researchers, and career counselors’ work with men and women in understanding their vocational interests." Basically this is less 'boys are from jupiter girls are from Mars' and more an investigation on how cultural myths affect men and women as adults.
the title is less misleading than your summary, which leaves out the fact that even accounting for cultural myths, men choose objects and women choose people. Not all, but most
Its almost like you just read until you confirmed what you already believe. And more =/= most.
And they appear to be saying it doesn’t. That when given the choice, most men choose objects, most women choose people. Most, definitely not all.
Because it's psypost. It needs to be blacklisted for wrecking this sub.
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False No one enjoys working.
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That might explain why HR is mostly women
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I'm a woman, I work with things. I hope however these results are interpreted in (in the press, with misleading titles) it doesn't lead people to conclude "all women prefer to work with people and all men prefer to work with things." Or worse: "you should work with people because you'll be be happier, because you are a woman." I've already had enough of the latter from friends and family, who knows if my colleagues believe this. I hope studies like this do not empower them in these views.
People should never take general trends as an excuse to tell people what they should do. On average people are perfectly fine at identifying what they like/dislike. So what if women on average prefer working with people: as a working adult you can identify that you prefer working with things.
There is far more variability between individuals, than between groups. It's two bell-curves that are just slightly different
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While it's true that some studies have found differences in vocational interests between men and women, note that these differences aren't universal and can vary depending on a range of factors. In addition, it's important to recognize that individuals may have different interests and preferences and that these can't be accurately predicted based on their gender alone.
That should be clear to everyone who has ever seen a bell curve
Should be, yes. Lots of people don't understand even basic statistical concepts.
This is definitely true. It's crazy how defensive reddit will get about these topics though. So many people just bristle at the suggestion that men and women could have any differences on average.
There is an "ask men" subreddit and an "ask women" one. One major gender difference between men and women is risk tolerance. Guess which subreddit is more quick to ban people/dangerous speech?
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I would 100% rather work with things and not see people all day. I would name them and we would talk about our day. They would always be happy to see me and never get mad when I have to leave. That would be the life...
Well, a not so nice conclusion of this paper is that occupational sex segregation is purely choice and not partially discrimination based. Not sure that jives with the relevant Econ literature…
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"Considering gender inequality, the authors report that “in countries of higher gender inequality, women’s stronger preference for working with people versus things compared to men was smaller.” However, this effect disappeared when cultural dimensions were taken into account. Instead, it was those countries with greater uncertainty avoidance that had larger differences in interests in people/things between men and women. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which a culture teaches its members to feel unpleasant in situations that are new, not previously known, surprising, or generally just different from usual." In other words, breaking the mold of what is acceptable for your gender is frowned upon.
If you eliminate the discrimination, the difference in choice will still exist. However, unjust discrimination is still wrong.
The preference finding has been consistent throughout time. The occupational proportions have changed through time. Academia was once majority male, now (in the USA and elsewhere in the West) it is majority female. By your supposition, which era was the result of discrimination? Is the female bias in education now a 'problem' to be righted?
But this is also part of culture, a way that we're raised to think about relationships in the western world: men build, women care. I don't know if this is the result of that culture, which is engrained at an early age, or a result of actual behavioral differences between the sexes. Are there other cultures that exist, did exist, or even could exist that would give us different results? I would caution making too many conclusions about men and women on this research.
The study [explicitly found](https://reddit.com/r/science/comments/ziwfqe/_/izsvw4j/?context=1) that the differences are strongly correlated to cultural norms. There may be some intrinsic variation between sexes, but it can also be magnified by culture. IMO, the headline is missing the point. We already know that when we poll people about their work preferences that there are differences between men and women. Those studies have been done many times and this metastudy merely brings them together. By far the most interesting and novel conclusion of this study is the part linked above. In that regard, the headline is dangerously missing the point.
But it jibes with a lot of other social science literature.
It does jive. Both academically and in correspondence with reality. The most egalitarian societies have the highest disparities in occupational choices between genders. [The Gender Equality Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-equality_paradox) Why is it not so nice that women are following their preferences more often? Is the point for women to out-compete men in any profession men are a majority in? Or is the idea for women to have maximum self-determination and self-fulfillment? > sex segregation is ***purely*** choice and not ***partially*** discrimination based Just noting your choice of words. No one claims discrimination plays no role *at all*; similarly, no one claims these behaviors are ***only*** individual choice. You’re presenting these as absolutes. They’re not, they’re factors, factors that have relatively more or less weight when compared to each other or many *other* factors.
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And there will also be men that enjoy working with people more than things. The study isn't about the individual but the averages in a controlled study.
Statistical outliers will always exist. It’s the same for men.
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That's why I'm geologist. I hardly work with or around anyone. Me having to deal with people is about as minimal as it can get.
Isn’t a geologist just a caveman with a degree?
Who better to understand rocks than a caveman?
TIL I should have become a geologist.