Increased Wealth and Equality Lead to Gender Differences

So here’s a global research outcome, published in Sciencethat is different from what we’re supposed to believe:

We contrasted and tested two hypotheses that make opposite predictions concerning the cross-country association of gender differences in preferences with economic development and gender equality. On one hand, the attenuation of gender-specific social roles that arises in more developed and gender-egalitarian countries may alleviate differences in preferences between women and men. As a consequence, one would expect gender differences in preferences to be negatively associated with higher levels of economic development and gender equality (social role hypothesis). On the other hand, greater availability of material and social resources removes the gender-neutral goal of subsistence, which creates the scope for gender-specific ambitions and desires. In addition, more gender-equal access to those resources may allow women and men to express preferences independently from each other. …

Gender differences were found to be strongly positively associated with economic development as well as gender equality.

When men and women can afford to choose their occupations, they tend to choose differently.

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Of course, this doesn’t tell us whether a particular woman is better for some job than a particular man or how much different jobs are worth in the marketplace.  It should, however, lead us to pause before declaring that any occupation that isn’t distributed 50:50 across the sexes is evidence of sexism.  It should also lead us to ponder whether forcing parity would require forcing a reduction in wealth, freedom, and equality.

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