https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...gap-grows/
EXCERPT: . . . Those hypotheses address how national wealth and equality affect the choices men and women make. One of them, which the authors dub the “social role hypothesis,” predicts wealth and gender equality will lead to more similarities in preferences between genders. With equality and readily available resources, the idea goes, women and men will become more alike in their ways.
The “resource hypothesis,” in contrast, holds that abundance and equality will give men and women more freedom to express gender-related preferences, unconstrained by hardships that might force them to do otherwise. In this scenario a woman who worked in male-dominated field 50 years ago might have felt pressured to behave as “one of the boys.” But with a more equal gender representation in the workplace, perhaps such constraints would fade, leaving her freer to express more gendered preferences if she wishes.
To test these two hypotheses, [...researchers...] used responses to a survey from people representing every continent and countries at every level of economic development. The Global Preferences Survey asked participants about how they would respond in different scenarios involving six social factors [...] Armin Falk [...] and Johannes Hermle [...] have undertaken a massive study that looks worldwide at how national wealth and gender equality affect the choices men and women make when they think about risk taking, altruism and other social factors.
In their study involving 76 countries and 80,000 people, they found greater national wealth and gender equality are tied to bigger differences in preferences between men and women rather than to stronger similarities. They reported their findings, which they say favor one of two competing hypotheses on gender choices, October 18 in Science.
[...] “Our study confirms the (resource) hypothesis,” Hermle says. “The main takeaway is that gender differences in preferences are increasing with country level of economic development as well as gender equality.”
[...] “This is important work that will have a lot of impact,” says Matthias Doepke, an economics professor at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study. But he says, “the world is complicated, and I think we will find that neither hypothesis alone is a good summary of the data.”
MORE: https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...gap-grows/
EXCERPT: . . . Those hypotheses address how national wealth and equality affect the choices men and women make. One of them, which the authors dub the “social role hypothesis,” predicts wealth and gender equality will lead to more similarities in preferences between genders. With equality and readily available resources, the idea goes, women and men will become more alike in their ways.
The “resource hypothesis,” in contrast, holds that abundance and equality will give men and women more freedom to express gender-related preferences, unconstrained by hardships that might force them to do otherwise. In this scenario a woman who worked in male-dominated field 50 years ago might have felt pressured to behave as “one of the boys.” But with a more equal gender representation in the workplace, perhaps such constraints would fade, leaving her freer to express more gendered preferences if she wishes.
To test these two hypotheses, [...researchers...] used responses to a survey from people representing every continent and countries at every level of economic development. The Global Preferences Survey asked participants about how they would respond in different scenarios involving six social factors [...] Armin Falk [...] and Johannes Hermle [...] have undertaken a massive study that looks worldwide at how national wealth and gender equality affect the choices men and women make when they think about risk taking, altruism and other social factors.
In their study involving 76 countries and 80,000 people, they found greater national wealth and gender equality are tied to bigger differences in preferences between men and women rather than to stronger similarities. They reported their findings, which they say favor one of two competing hypotheses on gender choices, October 18 in Science.
[...] “Our study confirms the (resource) hypothesis,” Hermle says. “The main takeaway is that gender differences in preferences are increasing with country level of economic development as well as gender equality.”
[...] “This is important work that will have a lot of impact,” says Matthias Doepke, an economics professor at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study. But he says, “the world is complicated, and I think we will find that neither hypothesis alone is a good summary of the data.”
MORE: https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...gap-grows/