Gender differences in preferences and abilities cannot adequately explain why female engineers and primary school teachers remain so rare. A new approach is therefore investigating the extent to which assumptions about whether a profession suits you or not can explain the persistent gender segregation.
Benita Combet
Read the original uniAKTUELL article here.
Growing up means making decisions: What is my career aspiration, which apprenticeship do I apply for, which degree programme do I enrol for? Interestingly, there are still significant gender differences when it comes to career choices, while these have narrowed massively in many other areas, such as wages. In 2020, for example, 82 out of 100 Master's degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering went to men and only 18 to women.
So why do women not choose careers in engineering and IT more often, even though the demand for labour and salaries are high? To answer this question, it is important to understand how career choices are made: On the one hand, young people make a comparison between their personal preferences and their skills, not necessarily accurately assessing the latter. On the other hand, they have certain ideas about a profession.
Desires for a career and work-life balance have converged
Previous research has mainly investigated the role played by gender-specific differences in preferences and abilities. It has often been argued that men's stronger preference for income and career and women's desire for work-life balance can explain these differences in career choice. However, a meta-analysis from the year 2000 shows that these differences in preferences have decreased massively - partly because the role of women in society has changed and the compatibility of family and career has generally improved.
Our perceptions of professions are often not based on facts, but rather on clichéd portrayals in the media.
Benita Combet
Another explanation is that women are inferior to men in maths skills. However, several meta-studies show that on average there are hardly any gender-specific differences. Furthermore, the number of exceptionally mathematically talented individuals varies according to cultural context and can change rapidly within a very short period of time. Research results also show that although female students have similar maths grades to their male peers, they often underestimate their abilities because stereotypes tend to attribute mathematical and analytical skills to men. As a consequence, female students generally engage less with advanced maths, programming and similar topics, even though this could give them a first insight into STEM careers.
The social construction of professions
So what prevents mathematically talented and interested women from choosing a STEM profession? Recent research suggests that ideas about whether a profession suits you or not and what image you have of your potential future work colleagues also play a role. However, our perceptions of professions are often not based on facts, but rather on clichéd portrayals in the media. A classic example is the TV series "The Big Bang Theory", in which scientists and engineers are portrayed as absolute nerds with poor social skills and less popular hobbies such as comics, science fiction and role-playing games, but all the more intellectual brilliance.
Women who cannot identify with the nerd stereotype can find this unsettling: do I fit into such an environment, do I want to be like that? On the one hand, women are stereotypically associated with qualities such as caring, diligence (but not necessarily intelligence) and social skills - the exact opposite of nerds. On the other hand, there are persistent but incorrect perceptions about working in STEM professions, for example that you hardly ever work with other people, that the work is not very creative and that the results of the work have no direct benefit for society.
To summarise, this new research shows that the (self-assessed) fit with the professional culture is an aspect of career choice that should not be neglected (provided that the necessary skills and interests are present).
Real experiences instead of clichés
So what can be done to ensure that young people are not guided by misconceptions when choosing a career? It is certainly important to provide accurate information and give them an insight into the real world of work and study. For example, existing information campaigns organised by universities and Federal Institutes of Technology could be increasingly integrated into school lessons in order to break the clichéd image of the nerdy engineer working in isolation on a socially irrelevant niche topic.
About the person
Benita Combet
is an SNSF Ambizione recipient and works at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Zurich, where she investigates the extent to which gender and social background create educational and gender inequality. She studied and completed her doctorate at the University of Bern. She is a member of the "Education, Skilled Labour and Diversity" committee of digitalswitzerland.
Picture: zvg