Benita Combet¹; Jule Hauf²

¹ Universität Bern; ² European University Institute

Despite achieving formal gender equality, women and men often gravitate towards different educational and occupational pathways, particularly along the “people” dimension and the male-typed “things” dimension (e.g. Su and Rong 2009).  While women in general prefer socially interactive roles and men roles that involve technological aspects, it has remained unclear what specific characteristics drive these choices. For example, we do not know whether men dislike supporting people emotionally while being indifferent to working in teams. For women, it could be that they do not mind using technical gadgets, but are averse to developing the same devices.

To answer this question, we conducted a large-scale choice experiment with a representative group of Swiss high school students (N ~ 5000). They were presented with hypothetical fields of study that differed in several characteristics corresponding to the dimensions “people” and “things”. In addition, we frame these characteristics as requiring skills that are either innate (fixed mindset) or can be acquired (growth mindset), assuming the latter will reduce gender-typed preferences.

Our results show that women have a strong aversion to several traits in the “things” dimension, with the strongest aversion to programming, while they show a preference for analytical thinking. For men, we find neither strong aversions to traits in the “people” dimension, nor large preference differences between traits. Furthermore, framing these traits in terms of a growth mindset increases women’s preferences for most traits in the “things” dimension. Conversely, this is not the case for men in the “people” dimension.

Clara Englert; Hanno Kruse

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Despite similar academic performance, girls exhibit significantly lower interest in STEM subjects than boys. Beyond early socialization processes, the school environment plays a key role in shaping students’ STEM interests: On the one hand, friends’ and classmates’ adherence to gender-normative beliefs can affect adolescents’ STEM interests, as gender-atypical interests may be socially sanctioned. On the other hand, organizational and structural factors at the school-level can influence the development of gendered STEM interests. In this study, we conceptualize the gender gap in STEM interests as a relational phenomenon that varies across different educational environments. By bridging two previously separate research strands—one examining peer dynamics as a universal amplifier of gender disparities and the other exploring school-level variations in STEM interest gaps—we provide a more nuanced understanding of how locally specific, gendered STEM peer cultures emerge.

Our empirical analyses are based on the IQB Trends in Student Achievement 2018 study, which contains data on the friendship networks of over 44,000 ninth-graders across 1,462 schools in Germany. First, we quantify and model gendered STEM peer cultures as gender differences in network (auto-)correlation between students’ friendship ties and their STEM interests. Next, we examine variation in their prevalence across educational contexts. Finally, we inductively identify the institutional and compositional school features that predict the development of these cultures. By taking a relational and contextualized approach, our study provides both theoretical and practical insights into the key conditions shaping the emergence of gender disparities in STEM interest.

Kerstin Ostermann¹; Marie-Fleur Philipp²; Eileen Peters³

¹ Institute for Employment Research IAB; ² University Tübingen; ³ Hans-Böckler-Stiftung

Individuals’ beliefs regarding maternal employment play a pivotal role in reproducing gender inequalities in employment and family life. Understanding their formation is key for developing effective, evidence-based policies to promote gender equality. While prior research has linked gender beliefs to personal characteristics and national policies, the influence of local contexts remains underexplored. This paper investigates how neighborhood-level female employment patterns shape beliefs about maternal full-time work in Germany. We argue that neighborhoods function as socio-cultural reference frames where local norms and opportunity structures reflect and reinforce gendered expectations and normative beliefs. Using the German Panel Study “Labour Market and Social Security” (2011 and 2016) and aggregated administrative data on the level of 1x1km grid cells, we link respondents’ beliefs to local female employment shares. Our study (1) introduces a micro-geographical perspective to move beyond broad regional analyses; (2) illuminates how local employment patterns shape normative beliefs regarding maternal employment; and (3) goes beyond common gender ideology measures regarding maternal employment by capturing beliefs regarding the appropriate age of a child at which mothers can return to work. We find that higher rates of marginal employment among female neighbors are positively, and higher rates of full-time employment are negatively associated with support for mothers’ later return to full-time work even if we control for the neighborhood’s general employment level. The study provides with a rich combination of survey and population data new insights into how exposure to female employment patterns at the neighborhood level shapes individuals’ normative beliefs regarding maternal employment.