Thomas Breda, Elyès Jouini, Clotilde Napp and Georgia Thebault; (PNAS Decembre 2020)
The gender-equality Paradox of corresponds to the observation that the more egalitarian and developed a country is, the fewer women choose careers in the field of STEM.
This observation reinforced the proponents of deeply rooted or intrinsic differences between the sexes in terms of tastes and disciplinary preferences: women would be less attracted to STEM. This lesser taste would be expressed more easily in countries where constraints in general and economic constraints in particular are more limited and where people are therefore more free to do so.
We show, on the contrary, that this paradox can be explained by differences between countries in terms of essentialist gender norms and stereotypes regarding mathematical skills and appropriate professional choices. To this end, we propose a measure of the prevalence and extent of internalization of the stereotype that “mathematics is not for girls”. To do this, we use individual data on attitudes towards mathematics from 300,000 15-year-old students, both female and male, in 64 countries.
It then becomes clear that the stereotype associating mathematics with men is stronger in more egalitarian and developed countries. This stereotype is also strongly associated with the underrepresentation of women in math-intensive fields and may fully explain the gender equality paradox. In addition, the statistical analysis shows the link between this underrepresentation and the level of development becomes non-significant when we control the level of stereotypes. Whereas, conversely, the link between underrepresentation and level of stereotypes remains almost unchanged when we control the level of development. Which suggests that the link put forward by the Paradox of Gender Equality could be entirely mediated by stereotypes.
This work suggests that economic development and gender equality in rights go hand in hand with a recasting rather than a suppression of gender norms, with the emergence of new and more horizontal forms of social differentiation between the sexes. The explanation of the paradox of gender equality would thus be entirely of cultural origin.
Fight stereotypes
These findings lead to the same conclusion: the low presence of women in scientific studies and professions is a socially constructed fact, and will not naturally decrease when society becomes more developed and overall more egalitarian. Appropriate policies are therefore essential.
Prejudices such as “girls are not good at mathematics” and “girls do not like mathematics” are not confirmed by any scientific study on an international scale. It is our collective responsibility to fight them. This involves awareness programs both in schools and in families, from a very young age.
Improving information for students, particularly in terms of career prospects, when they have choices to make, is also essential. Setting up mentoring programs and involving women scientists who have succeeded in male-dominated paths is proving effective. It is no coincidence that girls who have scientific mothers today have a greater chance of pursuing and succeeding in these fields.
In terms of the organization of the education system as a whole, it would finally be necessary to think about less specialized paths early on, in order to prevent girls from abandoning science too early and boys from abandoning literature just as early.