Agneta Herlitz is a professor of psychology at Karolinska Institutet and works to compile research from around the world on men's and women's personalities, career choices and interests linked to the surrounding society's degree of equality.
- If we look at gender equality and relate it to economics, we see that men and women become more different in more equal countries or countries with good living conditions, says Agneta Herlitz in SVT's From the savannah to Tinder.
The equality paradox
The scientific journal Science and the International Journal of Psychology have both published studies that point in the same direction.
The phenomenon is well known and is called the gender equality paradox.
Simplified, it can be exemplified as follows: Although Sweden is considered a rich and equal country, relatively few girls study technology and mathematics at university, compared with less rich and equal countries.
This is despite the fact that girls perform at least as well as boys in school.
The reasons for the differences can be many, but it has not yet been demonstrated what is due to biology and what is due to social factors.
“Sits in the brain, not sex”
In Sweden, about 99 percent of all carpenters are men and about 90 percent of all assistant nurses and childminders are women.
Specialist nurse Anna Trengereid lacks more men in her profession, but does not believe that biological properties are crucial.
- It is not a job that suits everyone.
It depends on what personal qualities you have - and it is in the brain and not in the sex, she says.
Men like things - women people
Why do we choose so gender-specific when it comes to jobs? Could it be that you are pursuing your biological interests?
- Yes, whether you want to call them biological or not, but behavioral in any case.
If you ask adults or children to choose whether they would like to work as a carpenter or preschool teacher, you will see very clear gender differences.
Boys and men find it more interesting with things rather than people, while women and girls find that work aimed at people is more interesting, says Agneta Herlitz.
Biology one of the explanations
Markus Heilig, a brain researcher at Linköping University, believes that biology is one of the explanations:
- It is clear that the better ability that girls at group level have to understand complex social contexts will be of great use in care, which requires both an interaction with patients but also some kind of collaboration in a care team around a person.
So it is clear that it can contribute.
The interviews in the article and video come from episode four of the series From the Savannah to Tinder, which will be published in three weeks. Episode one will be broadcast on Wednesday 18 August on SVT1 at 9.30 pm and the first two episodes are already available on SVT Play.