{"id":35072,"date":"2019-12-02T16:55:47","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T21:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/?p=35072"},"modified":"2021-04-27T08:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T12:51:28","slug":"across-u-s-women-are-choosing-less-financially-rewarding-majors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/across-u-s-women-are-choosing-less-financially-rewarding-majors\/","title":{"rendered":"Across U.S., Women Are Choosing Less Financially Rewarding Majors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Female students are more inclined to select a major with lower earnings prospects than their male counterparts, a new study finds. This is true even in cases when both female and male students prioritize income potential in their choice of a major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this the case? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natasha Quadlin<\/a>, an assistant professor of sociology at The Ohio State University, attributes this dichotomy to the \u201cgendered logics of major choice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven when women place great emphasis on earnings, other preferences may ultimately win out for them,\u201d Quadlin said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her study, Quadlin analyzed data from a survey<\/a> of 2,720 students from three higher education institutions with incentive programs for attracting and retaining STEM majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During their first term, each student in the survey had to rate on a 1-5 scale the importance of four factors — income potential, career options, engaging classes, and helping other people — when choosing their major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the students subsequently disclosed their choice of major. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Quadlin analyzed federal job data to check the earnings associated with each major and found a pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pattern was clear: The majors men choose are associated with significantly higher earning than the majors women choose \u2013 regardless of men\u2019s and women\u2019s major preferences,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And men selected majors that have higher earnings potential even when both women and men had the same priority behind their selection — whether it\u2019s income potential, career options, engaging classes or helping people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, women who prioritize helping people were more likely to choose nursing while men with the same priority were more likely to select biology, a pre-med major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNursing is a relatively high-paying job, but it generally doesn\u2019t pay as much as doctors can earn,\u201d Quadlin said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are women more likely to choose nursing still? The explanation may lie in what women and men think are realistic jobs for them, according to Quadlin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s research that suggests men and women have very different ideas about what types of careers and fields are open and available to them,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome STEM careers that pay the most may not be as receptive to women as they are to men, so women adjust what majors they select.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To attract women to high-paying STEM careers, it may not be enough to inform them \u201cit is a way to make a lot of money or a way to help other people,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead, we may have more to do with changing the culture around STEM so that women feel the field is more open and receptive to them,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth noting that, even today, women still only make 79 cents for every dollar<\/a> that men make, and occupational segregation is one of the reasons why. 
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female students are more inclined to select a major with lower earnings prospects than their male counterparts, a new study finds. This is true even in cases when both female and male students prioritize income potential in their choice of a major. Why is this the case?  Natasha Quadlin, an assistant professor of sociology at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[661,662,645,688,689,389,230,229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ace-college","category-ace-high-school","category-discourse","category-discourse-ace-college","category-discourse-ace-high-school","category-ohio-state-university-main-campus","category-news","category-lead-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg",830,533,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors-224x144.jpeg",224,144,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors-300x193.jpeg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg",830,533,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg",830,533,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg",830,533,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg",830,533,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Susan Chu","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/author\/susan-chu\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Female students are more inclined to select a major with lower earnings prospects than their male counterparts, a new study finds. This is true even in cases when both female and male students prioritize income potential in their choice of a major. Why is this the case?  Natasha Quadlin, an assistant professor of sociology at…","featured_media_src_url":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Across-U.S.-Women-Are-Choosing-Less-Financially-Rewarding-Majors.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}