The more women and men are equal, the less they want the same things, a study reveals

Imagine an egalitarian society that treats women and men with the same respect, in which both sexes have the same opportunities and the economy is strong.

What would happen to gender differences in this utopia? Would they dissolve?

The answer, according to a new study, is a categorical no.

The results, released Thursday in Science, suggest instead that gender differences among six key personality traits – altruism, trust, risk, patience, and positive and negative reciprocity – are increasing in richer and more egalitarian societies. At the same time, in poorer and less egalitarian societies, these gender differences are narrowing.

"Meeting basic needs is not sexist," said Johannes Hermle, a graduate student in economics from the University of Berkeley, who worked on the study. However, once basic needs such as food, housing and health are met and people are free to follow their own ambitions, the differences between men and women become more pronounced, he said.

The new work is based on data collected by the Gallup World Poll in 2012.

The survey was implemented in 76 countries representing about 90% of the world's population, said the authors.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked a series of 12 questions designed to measure the personality traits that influence economic decision-making. These include a person's willingness to take risks, his ability to delay immediate gratification, his inclination to make charitable donations, the degree to which he presumes that others have good intentions and his interest to reward good deeds and to punish insults, even if that happens. a financial cost.

The questions were asked of about 1,000 people randomly selected in each country. The study includes data from about 80,000 respondents aged 15 and over, said the authors.

In their analysis, the researchers controlled age, cognitive skills, educational level, household income, and local cultural norms. Once that was done, they found that at the global level, gender differences were present in all six categories.

Overall, women were more altruistic and confident than men, but also less patient and less likely to take risks. They scored higher on positive reciprocity (that is, an inclination to repay a favor) than men and lower on negative reciprocity (a desire for revenge against a weak one).

Further analysis of the data showed that these gender differences were much more pronounced in the richest countries and the countries with the highest gender equality.

"What we want to emphasize here is that both factors are important," Hermle said. "Economic development and gender equality have an independent impact."

The authors found that gender differences among the six traits were highest in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia. They were the lowest in Ghana, Iraq, Tanzania, Pakistan and Iran.

Although these results are statistically significant, Hermle cautions that the size of the effect is not so great.

For each of these preferences, "there is a huge variation between the sexes," he said. "If you randomly pick a woman or a man from the United States or another country, knowing the sex of that person tells you very little about their preferences."

The work does not indicate why women and men have overall achieved a different score on these characteristics – for example, whether this gender gap is biological or whether it is transmitted by culture.

But Hermle said the results exclude a theory suggesting that these personality traits are entirely dictated by genetics and the biology of evolution.

"We find that the variability between countries is sufficient to indicate that people are meeting the conditions in which they grew up," he said.

In conclusion, Hermle emphasized, the study underscores the importance of including women in top-level decision-making processes, both in society as a whole and in corporate structures.

"Previous work has shown that greater empowerment of women can improve the well-being of the child and lead to a more democratic decision-making process," he said. "It's important to have a plurality of preferences represented."

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