Women remain strongly underrepresented in math-related fields. This phenomenon is problematic because it contributes to gender inequalities in the labor market and can reflect a loss of talent. The current state of the art is that students’ abilities are not able to explain gender differences in educational and career choices. Relying on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, we show that female students who are good at math are much more likely than male students to be even better in reading. As a consequence, the difference between 15-y-old students’ math and reading abilities, which is likely to be determined by earlier socialization processes, can explain up to 80% of the gender gap in intentions to pursue math-studies and careers….
Results confirm that the comparative advantage in math with respect to reading at the time of making educational choices plays a key role in the process leading to women’s underrepresentation in math-intensive fields….
Our examination is motivated by the idea that students are likely to decide to major in a given field on the basis of their relative (rather than absolute) ability in that field with respect to other fields. This simple theory is backed-up by studies suggesting that students tend to think in terms of “what they are better at” rather than in terms of “required skills to succeed in a particular career,” and that they are encouraged to do so by teachers and their environment. Research in social psychology also shows that “people think of themselves as either math persons or verbal persons but not both.” Hence, a student that is good at math but even better at reading may favor humanities because she perceives herself as a verbal person. This is despite the fact that her career prospects (which students tend to be unaware of) may be better after math-related studies.
For a summary on Nova, see here.
For other posts on humanities careers, see here.
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