Essay On Gender Differences In Major Selection

Table 2 presents figures for the United States. All of the gender disparities seen in the US are not above a 10% margin. This could signal smaller differences when accounting for sampling errors. Additionally the United States gender roles like women not working and men being more involved in sports make the findings insignificant. Table 3’s only significant finding was that men were near 5% more likely than women to belong to at least one associations worldwide. Most statistical data allows for 3% error, without error being stated at all in the report it is unknown if this is significant. Additionally table 4 shows little differences in involvement of genders with men slightly outnumbering women when it comes to involvement worldwide. This difference falls when taking into account factors like having no children (3% more men), and egalitarian views on gender equality (2% more men). Again without discussing the margin of error in any of these results the numbers, all of which are under a 9% difference, become

Have you ever wondered whether or not there was any correlation between gender and college major? We conducted a survey consisting of 105 people (51 males and 54 females) and of those people, 34.3% (17 males and 19 females) did not think that there was a direct correlation between the two. Our goal was to see if gender did in fact influence one’s choice of major, or if it had no influence at all. After proper surveying and thorough analysis of literature, we found that both female and male students generally have college majors concentrated in certain areas and industries.

In today’s technology parents are able to know the gender of their child before giving birth. However advanced technology is now available for parents to be able to choose the child’s gender before even being implanted in the mother’s womb. Prenatal sex selection is considered one of the major controversial and unethical practices in today’s society. Others favor gender selection because it can be used for preventing genetic disorders and family balancing. Some argued that choosing the gender of your child interferes with nature and natural selection process, it is high in cost, and can cause gender discrimination and bias favoring a specific gender over the other. Even though gender selection can have good benefits for the parents

Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are

The report included 136 countries, “representing over 90% of the world’s population” (The Global Gender Gap Report, 2013). Although, gender equality has not been achieved in any country, in 2013 “over 96% of the gap in health outcomes, 93% of the gap in educational attainment, 60% of the gap in economic participation and 21% of the gap in political empowerment” were closed (The Global Gender Gap Report, 2013). Views upon why gender stratification exists vary within different sociological theories and hold different ideals of what the ‘norm’ should be for members of society.

In Who Studies the Arts and Sciences? Social Background and the Choice and Consequences of Undergraduate Field of Study (2006), Goyette and Mullen explored the effects of social background on the choice of major once in college in an effort to understand the relationship between social stratification and higher education. In previous studies, sociologists have documented the disparities in major selection, especially the field of science, when influenced by gender and race. Despite the extensive research done in those areas, the choice of arts and science versus a vocational majors, labor market returns to undergraduate degrees and how curricular divisions parallel social background has often been neglected. Previous research may have found evidence of the influence future incomes has on a student’s choice of study, but it did not consider how social background and major work together to affect graduate school outcomes and differentia earnings. As such, the link between social background and the selection of an Arts and Sciences major has yet to be explored, even if there is reason to suspect that this relationship is weakening or disappearing. To do this, Goyette and Mullen intended to explore four sets of mechanisms, which were the roles of tested proficiency, the student 's university, educational and career expectations, and values about work, through which social background could impact the choice of educational field in college. Since this is a complex subject,

417) which shows that males still perform better than females on both mathematics and science tests. So, there are fewer females with standardized test scores high enough to meet entrance requirements of engineering and technology programs, which are often rigorous. Not only do fewer women enter into these fields in the first place, but universities have noticed that retention of women is lower than retention of men in these fields. Amanda Griffith, in the Economics of Education Review, stated that “[women and minorities] are less likely to pick a STEM major initially, and if they do, less likely to remain in that major” (911). Although both genders struggle in STEM fields, statistics show that females have greater problems – only 37% of women who declare a STEM major upon entering college actually earn one while 43% of men do. In addition, fewer women than men switch into a STEM major from another department – only 10% of women and 15% of men had done so by the spring of their sophomore year (Griffith 915).So, there are two problems plaguing the representation of women in these fields – they are less likely to show an interest in these fields to begin with and are more likely to drop out of a STEM major if they do.

Sexual selection can best be described by the definition given by Darwin himself. Sexual selection is “the advantage which certain individuals have over other individuals of the same species solely in respect of reproduction” (Hosken et al, 2011). Sexual selection occurs throughout the animal kingdom, where male frogs dominate through the depth of their croak, and certain peacocks reign superior based on the colour and intricate detail on their tails. They remain superior to their lesser counterparts as they bear more admirable characteristics, from which they are chosen by females of the same species.

By targeting the number of enrolled female students at community colleges, we can increase the number of women college graduates and thus address the issue of the gender gap in the workforce. This would help achieve the overall goal of facilitating creativity and innovation by increasing diversity in STEM occupations. Any initiatives and programs designed for this purpose should also take into account possible etiologies of this gender discrepancy. Some well-known contributing factors to the lower number of female community college students enrolled in STEM courses include negative gender stereotypes regarding aptitude towards mathematics and science, and a decreased number of female faculty members in college and universities.

Choosing a career to pursue before starting college can be a painstaking process for anyone, but it is an important one. It is a decision that will affect a person for their entire life, and it is an even harder decision for women. Many jobs are dominated by males, and a job’s demographics can be quite intimidating for a female if there are five times as many men in that career field than women. Women have to take that into consideration when making this important decision, but sometimes things are not what they seem. Just because a career field has more men than women, does not mean that men have a better chance at getting a job. There are a lot of factors that play into the demographic makeup of a career field, and the demographics of the field of information technology can be rather misleading.

Andrews, Iberman and Lovenheim set out to prove that the major a college student chooses affects earnings and educational attainment. They point out that other studies have been conducted on educational attainment returns, however it is noted that the other papers lack in the fact that they do not account for heterogeneity in college quality or in the major of study that the student selects. Andrews, Iberman and Lovenheim, thus have decided to zero in on the effects of majoring in business for college students in the state of Texas. Their contributions provide surprising evidence that challenges the idea that women benefit greatly from majoring in a “STEM” field as well as evidence to support that majoring in business increases the

Throughout time there has been a common stereotype that girls, and women, are bad at math and science. However, there are women who graduate college with STEM degrees, thus claiming women are biologically worse than men in this field

Have societal gender expectations affected subject selection in schooling, and do the experiences of Generation X students differ from those of Generation Z students in relation to such expectations?

In the last few decades, our nation has seen a modern day revolution in women’s participation in the workforce. Today, women are independent breadwinners for their families. In education, modern day young women have pushed through boundaries and are doing just as well if not better that their young male counterparts in educational achievements and earn advanced degrees. Regardless of these advancements, women still trail behind their male peers with respect to education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

The two main common goals that researchers focus on under the Role Congruity Theory are family-related goals and that women tend to prefer occupations that help others (Barth 2015: 503). As for agentic goals,” prestige and financial success are valued more by men than women” (Barth 2015: 503). Researchers tend to believe that this very well could account for the gender gap in STEM fields.