Unfortunately modern agriculture has been widely vilified by media for decades often by people who grew up in cities and have never met a farmer in their life. Even drought tolerant crops because they're typically GMOs which are seen as "unnatural" to the media.
One corollary to this is that young women (and young men) may be inaccurately evaluating the social contribution of NGO/nonprofit work. A lot of these organizations are useless or (in the case of climate change activism) even counterproductive.
If you choose the right career path in biochemistry or solid-state physics, on the other hand, you shouldn't have any doubts about the value of what you're doing. And the pay will typically be better as well!
The MBA study is interesting. I've written about another study on MBA students that found that perceptions of women, especially single women, resulted in women consciously hiding their personal ambition. This may lead to certain skewing in their results::
"Bursztyn, Fujiwara and Pallais conducted the surveys and randomly told some of the students that their results will be shared publicly with other students, while others were told their answers would remain private or anonymous. The results of this study were illuminating. Single women who believed their answers may be made public in front of their classmates, desired $19,000 lower annual salary ($112,000 vs $131,000), desired less work travel per month (6.6 days vs 13.5 days) and were willing to work fewer hours per week (48.3 hours vs 52.2 hours) than if they believed their answers would be anonymous! The same pattern was found for specific personality traits – single women were less likely to want to lead or state they were ambitious if their information would be shared in a public setting. "
"To address that issue, Bursztyn, Fujiwara and Pallais performed additional experiments and analysis. The authors conducted an experiment during which students, in smaller groups, were asked to rank which type of jobs they would prefer (higher salary and longer hours vs lower salary and shorter hours) and told that their responses may be discussed at the end of the session. When placed in all female groups, women are far more likely to choose jobs with higher salaries and longer hours, as well as jobs with faster promotion schedules but included more travel. Women were more likely to prefer lower salary outcomes in groups in which there were more single men as opposed to married men. This difference in response leads more credence to the idea that it is social expectations influencing behavior of single women."
I grew up in the 50ies, went to High School in the 60ies, to university in the 70ies. During those years I became aware of the gaps between men and women, and the differences between the haves and the have-nots. I trained to be a journalist because I thought it important people were given information, so they could make their decisions. I was working and I was doing reasonably well.
It all came to a halt when my husband was offered a job in the USofA. I was so happy for him ! It was only after I had arrived, that I discovered how the US government created a special hell for us. Because we are the "unwanted also". We are not allowed to work, not allowed to meaningful volunteer, not allowed to have a business. In my years here I lost all that was important to me, my independence, my ability to work, my ability to earn money. "You should be grateful that you are allowed in to be here, to be of service to your husband", Democratic Senators/Members of Congress told me. It sounded eerily like the Handmaid's Tale, turning a woman into a Martha. Ambitions not allowed, desires must be forgotten.
I could not cope, could not take the mind-numbing loneliness. I lost my courage, my self-respect.
Why is it that thirty (yes, 30 !) years after I came here, the situation for H-4 (and 0-3) visa holders still the same ? Most of us are well-educated, have work-experience, some of us had a business in our country of origin. We speak English and we are here legally ! We could contribute a lot, if you would just let us. Which you do not.
Is it because H-4's are mainly women, mostly from India ?
It is not because you are a woman. The reason is that there is an impression that foreigners are taking jobs from native Americans. It is politically difficult to expand the number of work visas for non Americans. To let spouses come over and work is seen as a too much by many Americans. The politicians are responding to that feeling by not allowing spouses to work. I feel like the USA is missing out on good talent by having these laws. But that is the way it is
Over 80% of temporary work permits H-1B are given to males, under the cap (of 85,000). The small number issued to females is mainly in academia, as these are outside of the numerical cap. So yes, it is about being a woman.
I have heard the argument about job-taking as nauseam. Especially Democrats loved to hurl it in my face (e.g. Ms. Pelosi's people). In the mean time wherever I went I was offered a job - full-time, part-time, seasonal - because the economy was booming in the late 90ies. There was a worker shortage. Some people became rather unpleasant when I told them I would love to but "your government does not allow me". "Our government would never deny you the right to work!" Oh yes, it does.
If the US does not want foreign workers, just do away with the H-1B misery, and the whole alphabet soup of other non-immigrant work and spousal not-work visas. We will stay away and USers can take the jobs. See how that works out. (The job my husband "took" was open for more than a year before the hiring co. found him. There was already panic about being unable to meet promised release dates.)
Inertia and inaction when it comes to repairing the US immigration system has already caused the cartels to take over. They decide who to bring in. Who will be working in the US. It has become a profitable business for these criminals. From what I read, they are lot more efficient than USCIS.
If H-4's were males, politicians would have done more on our behalf. People high-up in companies would have done more. But women are like folding chairs, use them when you need them, throw them in a corner when you are done.
So yes it has everything to do with us being women. And coming from India.
"Over 80% of temporary work permits H-1B are given to males, under the cap (of 85,000). "
In order to prove this you would need to tell me how many men applied for H-1B and how many women applied. This strikes me as the same argument that people use when they say there is a wage gap. That women make less money for doing the same job. If it were true that business can get the same work done by paying women less, then they would never hire a man, because women would be cheaper to hire and employ. This is patently false
The H-1B lottery is for filed petitions as the number of visas available (65,000 plus 20,000) is not sufficient for the number of high level foreign workers US tech companies want to hire. Only during the Y2K scare did companies manage to get the government to allow them larger numbers of workers.
Workers cannot apply themselves for an H-1B visa. The employer has to file with USCIS. They have to prove why the worker is needed, that they will pay "prevailing" wage. The co. has to meet a number of requirements re. capitalization etc. The worker must have a bachelors degree or sufficient experience in his field with ongoing promotions (totaling about twelve years).
In most cases a worker is invited by a co. to apply. The petition is usually completed by an immigration attorney or by the legal department of a co. High tech employers prefer male workers for a number of reasons.
But this was not the issue at hand ! I was addressing the fact that about 80% of H-1B workers are males. Who bring their wives. These wives are not allowed to work or to volunteer. This hurts them when later on they get a visa permitting them to work, or when they go back to their country of origin. They also have the problem that they are not collecting any points in the US Social Security system, which can hurt them when they reach Old Age.
But thank you (responders here) for mansplaining that we only have ourselves to blame !
"In order to prove this you would need to tell me how many men applied for H-1B and how many women applied."
This is the part of the above comment I sought to address. Men and women both have equal chances at being selected in the H-1B lottery. More men file H-1B applications, and thus more men are selected. The husbands of women (and gay men) who work under H-1B aren't allowed to work either.
This is an example of a disparity of outcome that stems from differences of behavior, not a non-discriminatory system. Your comments above seem to claim that there is discrimination in issuing H-1Bs - that seems to be the takeaway from SomeUserName. This is objectively false, H-1Bs are allocated via a lottery.
Also, why are you complaining about "mansplaining" when I wasn't even replying to you?
The employer applies for the work permit, not the worker. That is where the selection is made.
Originally the H-1B program was meant to bring expertise where it was lacking. The worker was expected to also be a mentor, to transfer knowledge/skills to US workers. Think: cooks for special cuisines, physiotherapists using new techniques, antiques/textile experts into restoration, etc.
But when computers and other tech became more important in daily life, big employers in that area discovered the H-1B visa. It became a way to bring in tech workers. The Y2K scare was an excuse to bring in even more - almost exclusively males.
Again, you are asserting discrimination, but have provided no numbers and/or sources to back your assertion. As well, if you are part of a husband/wife team who is working in the USA under the H1-B program it is incumbent upon you to decide as a team whether it is worth the opportunity cost to relocate to the USA vs remain in your country of origin. The USA is under no obligation to provide you an opportunity through these visas. The USA has a more open immigration policy than many countries. I myself (a US citizen) would like to become a citizen of another country. But it is quite difficult to do so
I am not asserting discrimination. I just ask people to look at the numbers. 80% of H-1B visas are issued to males, based on petitions filed by employers. Thanks to the fact that H-1B's are now almost solely issued for tech positions. It was not intended to be used this way originally.
The US does NOT have a more open immigration policy than other countries. It never ceases to amaze me that USers think this to be so. Usually they have no idea how the system is structured, the categories, the numbers, etc. yet they have their opinion. Your system is based upon family-reunion. That is how over 700,000 of the almost One Million permanent immigrants are allowed on.
Needed high level workers allowed in every year on Green Cards: 70,000. This has created an enormous backlog amongst H-1B's waiting for a permanent visa. As long as I live here, for over 25 years, I have heard politicians declare they want to reform the immigration system. But it never happens. Now the cartels have taken over. They bring in large numbers of "undocumented" immigrants - who will start to work almost immediately.
H-1B's from India wait 12 years and over for a Green Card because of said backlog. Which means H-4's are unable to work because the US government cannot get its act together and USCIS is unable to process petitions timely.
Other countries allow women (yes also US women !) to work in similar situations. Had I known this country's backward HandMaid's Tale thinking - which is getting worse and worse - I would never have come. Many talented workers are already opting not to come to the US for exactly this reason.
When I was university student I worked at an organisation that was trying to encourage young girls to go into STEM by teaching how to program robots. Perhaps we should have emphasised the social impact of the job instead of the typical approach with boys which basically boils down to "look at this sick shit."
Interesting and important points, but I'm not sure that it can be as successful as we'd like. IIRC Adam Smith noted that occupations that were unpleasant (he specifically mentioned butchering) paid better because fewer people wanted to do them, and consequentially the people who did do them were paid unusually well. We seem to have something like this going on in this analysis, with one set of "meaningful" jobs which have access to the whole labor pool and consequentially pay less, and one set of "non-meaningful" jobs which fewer people are willing to do and consequentially pay more. Improving the vibe of a certain sector of STEM will likely get more women to go into it, but similarly cause the pay in that sector to go down because it now has access to a larger labor pool.
There may be another complication. IIRC, Scott Adams (of Astral Codex Ten) claimed that the measurements of "preference for working with things vs. preference for working with people" was very sex-differentiated. If that is so, and isn't due to cultural exposure that's reasonably easy to modify, it may have a significant effect on career choice.
This is amazing, thank you for writing!! So much here for me to reflect on. Saving for future reference! Though, it’s got me wondering which jobs would be considered “less helpful” to others
Please also consider that these careers, centered on working with people, have higher job security due to be less likely to be outsourced to other countries. Thus they supply less money but more often, more reliably, so to speak - less likely to be jobless.
Nor will AI replace them - people would flat out refuse replacing a schoolteacher or a psychotherapist with AI. Japan is testing robot nurses - what is your prediction? Mine is that the patients will tell them to fsck off. They want to talk to a human being, and ideally someone who understands their culture and language and local dialect - yes, immigration is also leading to some complaints here, which means employers are quietly preferring either locals or long-time, well-assimilated immigrants if they can find them. This is also a job security thing.
I am a man in IT but the working with people part is why my job is not outsourced to India. Our customer companies usually only speak thick Viennese accented German and regularly misuse accepted professional terminology. Even if someone studies German in an Indian university, they have no chance without first living here a few years.
Perhaps this also drives these decision: a desire for security.
But maybe I am being redundant? No one likes to lay off someone with a halo over their heads, right? The halo definitely leads to less layoffs. Where are the lay-offs happening? In more, hm, mercenary jobs, like IT. Higher pay but the relationship is very transactional. We often say IT is a different form of prostitution, but still about sucking for money.
“This gender difference is probably a lower bound, since MBAs select for financial ambition.”
Pure speculation, but there could also be a countervailing income effect at play here: MBA students are likely to end up fairly well off, and may therefore be freer to express non-monetary values (if they have them).
Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought that biology and other life sciences fields were already majority female (in the US)? My own experience (definitionally anecdotal) is that the millennial women I have known already believed in the social importance of biology and medicine and saw careers in biology and medicine as a good way to meet the desire for a meaningful career. Whereas things like engineering or chemistry, which have less employment in not for profit organizations, were not viewed the same way. And maybe that also has to do with biology being understood as being about people and living things, and engineering and chemistry as being about inanimate objects.
FWIW, wanting to Make a Difference was one of the things that motivated me to pursue an advanced degree in a STEM field. (I went into infectious disease bacteriology, like the other Alice Evans.) It's just so clear if you look at history that public health is where all the huge progress in improving people's lives has happened over the past couple of centuries, and I wanted to be part of that action.
Do you see a difference between the career choices of married women vs single moms and/or single women? The trade-offs women make might be different because they aren't expected to be the breadwinner.
Could more be added in terms of analysing men's preferences? I feel like men are judged - in terms of relationship value and social value - in terms of competency (and whatever that means in different societies and cultures). This may be a driver in what men target. Looking at these from both perspectives could shed light not just on why women don't select what men do, but vice versa.
Unfortunately modern agriculture has been widely vilified by media for decades often by people who grew up in cities and have never met a farmer in their life. Even drought tolerant crops because they're typically GMOs which are seen as "unnatural" to the media.
Yes!
One corollary to this is that young women (and young men) may be inaccurately evaluating the social contribution of NGO/nonprofit work. A lot of these organizations are useless or (in the case of climate change activism) even counterproductive.
If you choose the right career path in biochemistry or solid-state physics, on the other hand, you shouldn't have any doubts about the value of what you're doing. And the pay will typically be better as well!
I agree. Sorry, I tried to make that explicit
The MBA study is interesting. I've written about another study on MBA students that found that perceptions of women, especially single women, resulted in women consciously hiding their personal ambition. This may lead to certain skewing in their results::
"Bursztyn, Fujiwara and Pallais conducted the surveys and randomly told some of the students that their results will be shared publicly with other students, while others were told their answers would remain private or anonymous. The results of this study were illuminating. Single women who believed their answers may be made public in front of their classmates, desired $19,000 lower annual salary ($112,000 vs $131,000), desired less work travel per month (6.6 days vs 13.5 days) and were willing to work fewer hours per week (48.3 hours vs 52.2 hours) than if they believed their answers would be anonymous! The same pattern was found for specific personality traits – single women were less likely to want to lead or state they were ambitious if their information would be shared in a public setting. "
"To address that issue, Bursztyn, Fujiwara and Pallais performed additional experiments and analysis. The authors conducted an experiment during which students, in smaller groups, were asked to rank which type of jobs they would prefer (higher salary and longer hours vs lower salary and shorter hours) and told that their responses may be discussed at the end of the session. When placed in all female groups, women are far more likely to choose jobs with higher salaries and longer hours, as well as jobs with faster promotion schedules but included more travel. Women were more likely to prefer lower salary outcomes in groups in which there were more single men as opposed to married men. This difference in response leads more credence to the idea that it is social expectations influencing behavior of single women."
Full write-up here - https://www.nominalnews.com/p/marriage-preferences-and-gender-outcomes
I grew up in the 50ies, went to High School in the 60ies, to university in the 70ies. During those years I became aware of the gaps between men and women, and the differences between the haves and the have-nots. I trained to be a journalist because I thought it important people were given information, so they could make their decisions. I was working and I was doing reasonably well.
It all came to a halt when my husband was offered a job in the USofA. I was so happy for him ! It was only after I had arrived, that I discovered how the US government created a special hell for us. Because we are the "unwanted also". We are not allowed to work, not allowed to meaningful volunteer, not allowed to have a business. In my years here I lost all that was important to me, my independence, my ability to work, my ability to earn money. "You should be grateful that you are allowed in to be here, to be of service to your husband", Democratic Senators/Members of Congress told me. It sounded eerily like the Handmaid's Tale, turning a woman into a Martha. Ambitions not allowed, desires must be forgotten.
I could not cope, could not take the mind-numbing loneliness. I lost my courage, my self-respect.
Why is it that thirty (yes, 30 !) years after I came here, the situation for H-4 (and 0-3) visa holders still the same ? Most of us are well-educated, have work-experience, some of us had a business in our country of origin. We speak English and we are here legally ! We could contribute a lot, if you would just let us. Which you do not.
Is it because H-4's are mainly women, mostly from India ?
It is not because you are a woman. The reason is that there is an impression that foreigners are taking jobs from native Americans. It is politically difficult to expand the number of work visas for non Americans. To let spouses come over and work is seen as a too much by many Americans. The politicians are responding to that feeling by not allowing spouses to work. I feel like the USA is missing out on good talent by having these laws. But that is the way it is
Over 80% of temporary work permits H-1B are given to males, under the cap (of 85,000). The small number issued to females is mainly in academia, as these are outside of the numerical cap. So yes, it is about being a woman.
I have heard the argument about job-taking as nauseam. Especially Democrats loved to hurl it in my face (e.g. Ms. Pelosi's people). In the mean time wherever I went I was offered a job - full-time, part-time, seasonal - because the economy was booming in the late 90ies. There was a worker shortage. Some people became rather unpleasant when I told them I would love to but "your government does not allow me". "Our government would never deny you the right to work!" Oh yes, it does.
If the US does not want foreign workers, just do away with the H-1B misery, and the whole alphabet soup of other non-immigrant work and spousal not-work visas. We will stay away and USers can take the jobs. See how that works out. (The job my husband "took" was open for more than a year before the hiring co. found him. There was already panic about being unable to meet promised release dates.)
Inertia and inaction when it comes to repairing the US immigration system has already caused the cartels to take over. They decide who to bring in. Who will be working in the US. It has become a profitable business for these criminals. From what I read, they are lot more efficient than USCIS.
If H-4's were males, politicians would have done more on our behalf. People high-up in companies would have done more. But women are like folding chairs, use them when you need them, throw them in a corner when you are done.
So yes it has everything to do with us being women. And coming from India.
"Over 80% of temporary work permits H-1B are given to males, under the cap (of 85,000). "
In order to prove this you would need to tell me how many men applied for H-1B and how many women applied. This strikes me as the same argument that people use when they say there is a wage gap. That women make less money for doing the same job. If it were true that business can get the same work done by paying women less, then they would never hire a man, because women would be cheaper to hire and employ. This is patently false
H-1B permits are issued via a lottery. There is exactly zero discrimination in issuing H-1Bs. More men get the permits because more men apply.
The H-1B lottery is for filed petitions as the number of visas available (65,000 plus 20,000) is not sufficient for the number of high level foreign workers US tech companies want to hire. Only during the Y2K scare did companies manage to get the government to allow them larger numbers of workers.
Workers cannot apply themselves for an H-1B visa. The employer has to file with USCIS. They have to prove why the worker is needed, that they will pay "prevailing" wage. The co. has to meet a number of requirements re. capitalization etc. The worker must have a bachelors degree or sufficient experience in his field with ongoing promotions (totaling about twelve years).
In most cases a worker is invited by a co. to apply. The petition is usually completed by an immigration attorney or by the legal department of a co. High tech employers prefer male workers for a number of reasons.
But this was not the issue at hand ! I was addressing the fact that about 80% of H-1B workers are males. Who bring their wives. These wives are not allowed to work or to volunteer. This hurts them when later on they get a visa permitting them to work, or when they go back to their country of origin. They also have the problem that they are not collecting any points in the US Social Security system, which can hurt them when they reach Old Age.
But thank you (responders here) for mansplaining that we only have ourselves to blame !
"In order to prove this you would need to tell me how many men applied for H-1B and how many women applied."
This is the part of the above comment I sought to address. Men and women both have equal chances at being selected in the H-1B lottery. More men file H-1B applications, and thus more men are selected. The husbands of women (and gay men) who work under H-1B aren't allowed to work either.
This is an example of a disparity of outcome that stems from differences of behavior, not a non-discriminatory system. Your comments above seem to claim that there is discrimination in issuing H-1Bs - that seems to be the takeaway from SomeUserName. This is objectively false, H-1Bs are allocated via a lottery.
Also, why are you complaining about "mansplaining" when I wasn't even replying to you?
The employer applies for the work permit, not the worker. That is where the selection is made.
Originally the H-1B program was meant to bring expertise where it was lacking. The worker was expected to also be a mentor, to transfer knowledge/skills to US workers. Think: cooks for special cuisines, physiotherapists using new techniques, antiques/textile experts into restoration, etc.
But when computers and other tech became more important in daily life, big employers in that area discovered the H-1B visa. It became a way to bring in tech workers. The Y2K scare was an excuse to bring in even more - almost exclusively males.
Again, you are asserting discrimination, but have provided no numbers and/or sources to back your assertion. As well, if you are part of a husband/wife team who is working in the USA under the H1-B program it is incumbent upon you to decide as a team whether it is worth the opportunity cost to relocate to the USA vs remain in your country of origin. The USA is under no obligation to provide you an opportunity through these visas. The USA has a more open immigration policy than many countries. I myself (a US citizen) would like to become a citizen of another country. But it is quite difficult to do so
I am not asserting discrimination. I just ask people to look at the numbers. 80% of H-1B visas are issued to males, based on petitions filed by employers. Thanks to the fact that H-1B's are now almost solely issued for tech positions. It was not intended to be used this way originally.
The US does NOT have a more open immigration policy than other countries. It never ceases to amaze me that USers think this to be so. Usually they have no idea how the system is structured, the categories, the numbers, etc. yet they have their opinion. Your system is based upon family-reunion. That is how over 700,000 of the almost One Million permanent immigrants are allowed on.
Needed high level workers allowed in every year on Green Cards: 70,000. This has created an enormous backlog amongst H-1B's waiting for a permanent visa. As long as I live here, for over 25 years, I have heard politicians declare they want to reform the immigration system. But it never happens. Now the cartels have taken over. They bring in large numbers of "undocumented" immigrants - who will start to work almost immediately.
H-1B's from India wait 12 years and over for a Green Card because of said backlog. Which means H-4's are unable to work because the US government cannot get its act together and USCIS is unable to process petitions timely.
Other countries allow women (yes also US women !) to work in similar situations. Had I known this country's backward HandMaid's Tale thinking - which is getting worse and worse - I would never have come. Many talented workers are already opting not to come to the US for exactly this reason.
When I was university student I worked at an organisation that was trying to encourage young girls to go into STEM by teaching how to program robots. Perhaps we should have emphasised the social impact of the job instead of the typical approach with boys which basically boils down to "look at this sick shit."
Agree!!
I should bring some slides from Jason Crawford's Progress Studies to really sell them little girls on INDUSTRIAL CIVILISATION.
Interesting and important points, but I'm not sure that it can be as successful as we'd like. IIRC Adam Smith noted that occupations that were unpleasant (he specifically mentioned butchering) paid better because fewer people wanted to do them, and consequentially the people who did do them were paid unusually well. We seem to have something like this going on in this analysis, with one set of "meaningful" jobs which have access to the whole labor pool and consequentially pay less, and one set of "non-meaningful" jobs which fewer people are willing to do and consequentially pay more. Improving the vibe of a certain sector of STEM will likely get more women to go into it, but similarly cause the pay in that sector to go down because it now has access to a larger labor pool.
There may be another complication. IIRC, Scott Adams (of Astral Codex Ten) claimed that the measurements of "preference for working with things vs. preference for working with people" was very sex-differentiated. If that is so, and isn't due to cultural exposure that's reasonably easy to modify, it may have a significant effect on career choice.
This is amazing, thank you for writing!! So much here for me to reflect on. Saving for future reference! Though, it’s got me wondering which jobs would be considered “less helpful” to others
Please also consider that these careers, centered on working with people, have higher job security due to be less likely to be outsourced to other countries. Thus they supply less money but more often, more reliably, so to speak - less likely to be jobless.
Nor will AI replace them - people would flat out refuse replacing a schoolteacher or a psychotherapist with AI. Japan is testing robot nurses - what is your prediction? Mine is that the patients will tell them to fsck off. They want to talk to a human being, and ideally someone who understands their culture and language and local dialect - yes, immigration is also leading to some complaints here, which means employers are quietly preferring either locals or long-time, well-assimilated immigrants if they can find them. This is also a job security thing.
I am a man in IT but the working with people part is why my job is not outsourced to India. Our customer companies usually only speak thick Viennese accented German and regularly misuse accepted professional terminology. Even if someone studies German in an Indian university, they have no chance without first living here a few years.
Perhaps this also drives these decision: a desire for security.
But maybe I am being redundant? No one likes to lay off someone with a halo over their heads, right? The halo definitely leads to less layoffs. Where are the lay-offs happening? In more, hm, mercenary jobs, like IT. Higher pay but the relationship is very transactional. We often say IT is a different form of prostitution, but still about sucking for money.
The gender wage gap isn't some evil plot by the patriarchy to keep women down? I'm shocked I tell ya. Just shocked
Yup, when you account for differences in field and hour worked the pay gap disappears: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/08/01/are-women-paid-less-than-men-for-the-same-work
Men and women do receive equal pay for equal work. The "pay gap" is largely because men and women aren't working the same jobs.
“This gender difference is probably a lower bound, since MBAs select for financial ambition.”
Pure speculation, but there could also be a countervailing income effect at play here: MBA students are likely to end up fairly well off, and may therefore be freer to express non-monetary values (if they have them).
Maybe I am mistaken, but I thought that biology and other life sciences fields were already majority female (in the US)? My own experience (definitionally anecdotal) is that the millennial women I have known already believed in the social importance of biology and medicine and saw careers in biology and medicine as a good way to meet the desire for a meaningful career. Whereas things like engineering or chemistry, which have less employment in not for profit organizations, were not viewed the same way. And maybe that also has to do with biology being understood as being about people and living things, and engineering and chemistry as being about inanimate objects.
FWIW, wanting to Make a Difference was one of the things that motivated me to pursue an advanced degree in a STEM field. (I went into infectious disease bacteriology, like the other Alice Evans.) It's just so clear if you look at history that public health is where all the huge progress in improving people's lives has happened over the past couple of centuries, and I wanted to be part of that action.
Do you see a difference between the career choices of married women vs single moms and/or single women? The trade-offs women make might be different because they aren't expected to be the breadwinner.
Or if you're Asian the rice winner.
Could more be added in terms of analysing men's preferences? I feel like men are judged - in terms of relationship value and social value - in terms of competency (and whatever that means in different societies and cultures). This may be a driver in what men target. Looking at these from both perspectives could shed light not just on why women don't select what men do, but vice versa.