{"id":1632,"date":"2017-10-25T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2017-10-24T11:42:28","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T16:42:28","slug":"how-grown-up-careers-are-like-middle-school-dances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2017\/10\/25\/how-grown-up-careers-are-like-middle-school-dances\/","title":{"rendered":"How Grown-Up Careers are Like Middle School Dances"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by stephalicious, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From sexual harassment<\/a> to salary gaps<\/a>, stories about gender inequality at work are all over the news. How does this happen? Social science research finds that p<\/span>eople often place into different jobs by gender, race, and class, and this sorting has consequences for inequality in earnings and career prestige. Just like a middle school dance where students congregate on opposite sides of the floor\u00a0<\/span>because of both self-sorting and social norms, gendered occupational segregation comes from a combination of choice and implicit discrimination based on workplace \u201cfit.\u201d Women often choose less prestigious occupations based on how they perceive their personalities and competence, and employers and colleagues tend to favor people like themselves when hiring, promoting, and collaborating.<\/span><\/p>\n

When people choose their jobs, they often think about careers to match their personalities. Gender socialization and stereotypes about competence, personality traits, and innate abilities influence how women and men consider which \u00a0jobs are right for them. Many women learn to perceive themselves as emotional, systematic, or people-oriented. They also tend to think they possess the right traits to work in female-dominated jobs like teaching and nursing. Women are more likely to think they will perform poorly at careers in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) because they have learned to think they are not \u201cnaturally\u201d as good at these subjects as men are.<\/span><\/h5>\n