Not quite true
Have a look at this article: w w w .thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
(had to space the WWW out to be able to post a URL)
The hypothesis of the majority of social scientists seems to be something like: "men and women have the same or similar innate interests and are told by society that they should do different things (jobs, hobbies, etc)"
So many Scandinavian countries said "Okay, we'll become as egalitarian as possible! We'll try to remove all social barriers to people picking whatever career they want. This should result in roughly 50/50 male/female splits in most jobs"
According to the majority of the scientific data, the opposite has actually happened
In Scandinavia, more than almost any other world region, most job sectors are hugely skewed to either male-dominated or female-dominated
My .02 is that I think no matter what you’ll have things that are “xyz dominated.” Society is “xyz dominated.” Almost every country in the world will have some majority or another. Men and women tend to naturally be pretty close to 50/50 with some genetic bias toward female and selection pressure tends to be towards male where some mode exists to influence population. So if no women want to be doctors that is fine. But if we hear women saying they want to be doctors but then we see them not making that happen- we need to figure out why and work on that. If women who are doing the same jobs as men aren’t getting paid equally we also need to look at that.
A woman might say she wishes there are more women doctors to see, she wishes more women were in power so that women’s issues and perspectives were better represented. If every woman wants a female doctor but no women want to be female doctors... there won’t be any right? So then we have a demand for female doctors- and theoretically some women would see that and want to be doctors. Being the minority and in demand they are theoretically worth more- but we don’t see that. Is it sexism? Gender roles? Experience? Skill? Poor bargaining and career management? We need to ask why and try to work it out.
Here's the thing: do women choose low paying positions or are female-dominated positions paid worse because they have a majority of women there? Take for example teachers or nurses – absolutely crucial jobs, but underpaid as hell. I'm wondering whether gender might play a role in that, since statistically women are less likely than men to just go up to their boss and ask for a raise, even if they have the skills to be making a lot more. I'm thinking this mindset, along with gender sterotypes like that women choose "easy" jobs, might have deepened over time to the point female dominated professions are just systemically worse paying.
@ewqua- it’s a valid question, and an interesting one. I think there’s merit in exploring it. There does come a tough question though of how to compare equivalence. If we say a “Female” dominated field like perhaps “Nurse,” what industry could we compare that too that is male dominated and is “equivalent” to say it pays less on average? Like- teachers are important agreed. But what would be the male or gender neutral equivalent so we could say teaching is low paid compared to it? Where it becomes important is in answering wether society under values those jobs or undervalues women and thus pays less?
As a male civil engineer working for TXDOT, I make an average of $25,000 less that any female or male with similar experience in private practice. In Maintenance, i spend my days fixing THEIR mistakes. Cant change jobs b/c of residing with parents to take care of them. Was offered $220k / year + $80k moving bonus to work in Eastern Europe two years ago. They emailed Tuesday, offer now $250k. Still cant go.
Have a look at this article: w w w .thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
(had to space the WWW out to be able to post a URL)
So many Scandinavian countries said "Okay, we'll become as egalitarian as possible! We'll try to remove all social barriers to people picking whatever career they want. This should result in roughly 50/50 male/female splits in most jobs"
According to the majority of the scientific data, the opposite has actually happened
In Scandinavia, more than almost any other world region, most job sectors are hugely skewed to either male-dominated or female-dominated