How your gender determines your career choices

Posted by PSEDEN

2025-01-22

On 2025-01-22

✓ This article was first published in 2019 and last updated in 2025.

Did you choose your career path, or did your hormones dictate it? Ever since women gained rights and were able to choose career paths, most jobs have been culturally and socially labeled as “feminine” and “masculine.” For example, nannying is still considered a “women’s job,” while “software developer” is often considered a man’s job.

Unfortunately, the old career stereotypes are still accurate today. women only The proportion of STEM college graduates is as high as 26% (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and only 7% of men are employed Working as a nanny in the United States.

However, it turns out that cultural and social stereotypes about our career choices may not be the reason why men choose “masculine” jobs while women stick to “feminine” ones. Researchers speculate that this may have different causes, less to do with social interaction and more to do with our biology. Want to know more? Please read on.

How hormones affect career

one study Research from Penn State’s Department of Psychology shows that our interest in working with things, rather than people, is determined by hormonal influences.

The team of experts examined interest in careers where there are gender differences in the general population, specifically STEM careers, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. To ensure that the control group was comparable, they focused on young adults with congenital adrenal hyperplasia and their siblings who did not have the disease.

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) refers to elevated levels of the male sex hormone androgen. Researchers believe that women with CAH present as women, are genetically female, and are perceived as female, but their interests are often more related to culturally masculine activities.

The most obvious result of this study was that, compared to siblings without CAH, women with CAH were more interested in working with “things” than working with people. “Things” in studies are defined as everything from mechanical to digital—i.e., STEM careers. In other words, women with CAH are more likely to pursue engineering careers than those without CAH, who are more likely to be attracted to jobs that involve people, such as teaching or customer service positions.

Researchers believe these differences emerge early in someone’s social development. Interestingly, the same pattern was not observed among men, who generally tended to work in occupations involving “things” rather than people.

The researchers continue to speculate that this biological difference may go some way to explaining the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers, in addition to the social, political, and cultural barriers women face in STEM careers. They suggest that STEM jobs that emphasize human contact need to amplify their signals to encourage more women to take up positions.

Social conditions may not be as influential as we think

It is widely believed that our career choices are determined by the social conditioning of the types of jobs appropriate for each gender and may have nothing to do with social and cultural norms at all. another study David Geary of the University of Missouri in the United States and Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Essex in the United Kingdom jointly conducted a similar study and published it in an online peer-reviewed journal PLOS One Researchers examined gender differences in career path choices among 473,260 teenagers.

With nearly 500,000 teenagers from 80 different countries, researchers found that the ratio of boys to girls interested in career-oriented careers (carpentry, STEM, mechanics, etc.) was 4:1, while the ratio of people-career-oriented (Doctors, teachers, etc.) is 1:3. There are clear gender preferences even among young people.

The first thing that may come to mind when looking at these results is that social and cultural norms of gender roles remain very prominent and play a significant role in how our young people make career choices. However, the most interesting finding from this study is that this exact gender preference for object-based and people-based careers stands out even in countries where female empowerment movements are the norm, such as the Nordic region.

In other words, even in countries where outdated notions of balanced gender roles and “masculine” and “feminine” jobs are no longer in fashion, the same gender differences persist when it comes to teenagers’ career aspirations. Surprising, isn’t it?

While we can assume that these gender preferences may be influenced by biology and sex hormones, researchers believe it may be due to wealth. Nordic countries are generally wealthier, which could have a huge impact on how teenagers choose careers – when money is not the most important factor in career choices, people may be more inclined to choose a career path that truly interests them, whether that be – people-oriented or Put people first.

Of course, this area definitely needs more research so that researchers can draw concrete conclusions. Although the women’s empowerment movement has changed many people’s views on gender roles, social conditioning remains a significant factor in many aspects of our lives.

takeout

There is no doubt that sex hormones play a vital role in our daily lives. Women’s bodies experience monthly fluctuations in estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, which can affect many aspects of their lives—from physical strength to caloric needs and even mental and emotional stability.

Men, on the other hand, are subject to Testosteronewhich drives most of their decisions. Testosterone makes men aggressive, but it also makes them protective, ambitious, and sometimes reckless.

However, it is important to conduct more research on these topics. Although the pattern is clear, it’s important to maintain a healthy skepticism about such comprehensive studies until we have more definite answers about the biology.

There is a risk in blaming hormonal differences for something as intangible and subjective as job selection, and I believe this clear-cut finding may discourage women from joining STEM-related industries rather than encouraging them to follow their career dreams and aspirations, no matter what they might do yes.

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