Women and men: does gender equality expose our differences?
Women and men: does gender equality expose our differences?
Personal preferences related to risk, patience, trust and altruism are not equal between men and women. In addition, these differences increase at the same time as the economic development and gender equality of a country. It is the main conclusion of a study published today in the journal Science, carried out by German economists, based on data taken from 80,000 individuals from 76 countries.
When someone does us a favor, do we return it? If we touched 100,000 euros right now, how much would we donate to a good cause? If someone treats us badly, will we take revenge at any cost? These kinds of issues govern human behavior, but men and women do not answer the same in all countries. To try to explain these gender differences, the social role hypothesis ensures that the separation is attenuated in more developed and egalitarian places, because gender roles would not be so strong.
The resource hypothesis ensures the opposite. According to this, personal development only reaches its zenith in countries with sufficient means, where its inhabitants have their basic needs met. Therefore, the differences in preferences shown by men and women would be greater in these places. The study published in Science supports this second explanation.
"The data indicate that these gender differences in personal preferences are not the same in different countries," explains the researcher at the University of California at Berkley (USA) and co-author of the study, Johannes Hermle, to Sinc. This "substantial" variation, he says, is "highly associated" with the variation in levels of economic development and gender equality.
Young people walking around London. (Photo: Adobe Stock)
Why is this phenomenon? "If living conditions are hard, individuals are forced to behave more impatiently," says Hermle regarding the resource hypothesis. In these cases, personal preferences become secondary and it is the external conditions that dictate the behavior. "The availability of resources eliminates the priority of subsisting, neutral with respect to gender, and allows men and women to pursue their ambitions."
Hermle explains that gender equality in opportunities and access to resources is a consequence of economic development, and that it is "fundamental" so that each gender can manifest their desires with freedom. "This makes women less vulnerable to the influence of men and allows them to express different opinions from their peers."
The study could be carried out thanks to the data of the Global Preference Study (GPS) that was done during the Gallup World Survey 2012. As part of it, six preferences were measured: willingness to take risks, patience , altruism, trust and positive and negative repro- cess (gratitude and revenge, respectively).
Each preference was measured qualitatively and quantitatively. For example, risk-taking was evaluated by asking if the respondent would prefer to receive a fixed amount of money or play a lottery with a 50% chance of winning, in exchange for the possibility of receiving more. In addition, he was asked to answer the question: "In general, how willing are you to take risks?"
The countries that showed the most gender differences regarding these preferences were Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The least, Ghana, Iraq and Tanzania. Spain is above the middle of the table, ranked 28 out of 76.
In general, women showed higher levels of altruism, confidence and positive reciprocity than men. On the contrary, they exhibited in a smaller proportion behaviors that implied negative reciprocity, risk taking and patience.
The authors of the study warn against possible misinterpretations and hasty conclusions that can be drawn from the work. "Our findings do not rule out the influence of gender roles on these differences. Nor do they rule out the role of biological or evolutionary factors, "they say in the study. Hermle adds that the results do not talk about the individual factors that cause these differences.
The text does warn that theories that try to explain these differences without giving environmental factors the importance they deserve "are incomplete", something in which Hermle emphasizes: "Gender differences in preferences vary with the social environment, and explanations that do not take into account environmental factors are unable to explain these differences. "
Therefore, "strict biological explanations" that do not take into account the importance of the social environment are "incompatible" with the results. The variation is "so big" according to the levels of economic development and equality, that the genes can not be the only cause of which men and women show so different preferences. (Source: SINC/ Sergio Ferrer)
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