Benita Combet

lol

Indeed, unfortunately we did not test this, but what else is future research for? ;)

🎯 Implications:

1) Potentially, mismatches between perceived skills and job tasks might deter girls from entering tech-heavy roles.

2) To close the gender gap in occupations, we need to address perceptions of skill fit, not just offer better hours or pay.

🩺💻: The popular “people vs. things” dichotomy is a multidimensional preference structure:

💥Girls dislike technical tasks, but boys are fine with both technical & social tasks.

Figure showing results

🔍 Key insights:

- Girls avoid jobs requiring technical skills.
- Both genders like social skills.
- Girls prefer creative and routine tasks.
- Both genders appreciate a high salary (no sig. diff.).
- Girls prefer a meaningful job and family-friendliness.

We conducted a choice experiment among Swiss teens shows:

💰Boys and girls have similar preferences for workplace characteristics (salary, family-friendliness, meaningfulness).

💻 Skill requirements—especially technical tasks (IT reliance)—are responsible for gender differences.💥

Traditionally, researchers have focused on factors like salary or family-friendly hours to explain why men and women choose different jobs.

But what about skill requirements (e.g., creativity required for work tasks; strong IT reliance)?

Image showing abstract

New study alert, just out in SER! 🚨

What really drives gendered occupational choices among adolescents?

➡️It might not be workplace characteristics (e.g., salary), but skill requirements.

academic.oup.com/ser/advance-...

@sasemeeting.bsky.social, @snsf.ch,‬ @unibe.ch ern.bsky.social, @unisg.ch

Happy to be at this great interdisciplinary conference on Gender Issues in Education & the Labor Market organized by @benitacombet.bsky.social in Zurich. Here @julehauf.bsky.social from @clic.bsky.social presenting fresh experimental results on how to increase men's interest in nursing

Not only acting as gatekeepers for scientific funding at NIH, NSF etc, but now trying to gate keep the entire scientific process.

They say they want Americans to have more babies. What's beneath the surface? Pronatalists believe that modern culture has failed to adequately prioritize the value of nuclear families and making lots of babies. They see powerful potential allies in Elon Musk and JD Vance.

This great piece by @badnewshagen.bsky.social really gets into the sexism, racism, and eugenics that make up the very fabric of US pronatalist efforts. www.npr.org/2025/04/25/n...

Ever wondered whether women really hate programming that much or whether they just have such a huge preference for helping? Join, I’m presenting new work!

💥💥💥Deadline is approaching fast!!! Apply if you’re interested in promotion inequality! Also open to adjacent disciplines! 💥💥💥

See information below for all precarious female academics at Max Planck Institutes in need of mentorship (confidential, of course)
⬇️
@ngawiss.bsky.social @nnwiss.bsky.social @netzwerkmawi.bsky.social

#Machtmissbrauch
#Hochschule
#Wissenschaft
#IchBinHanna
#IchBinReyhan
#Befristung
#Prekarisierung

Uni Bern: Postdoctoral researcher in sociology or adjacent fields (e.g., economics, organizational psychology) Institute of Sociology, University of Bern Start of employment: 01.07.2025 or by agreement Employment is for a fixed term of 2 years, with options to extend up to 4 years.

🚨 Open postdoctoral researcher position 🚨:

▪️ PhD in sociology, econ, organiz. psychology, etc.
▪️ 80%, 2-year position @unibern.
▪️ Main tasks: set up + manage Swiss employer-employee panel & doing research on careers in companies
▪️ More infos: ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jo...

‼️ Hiring ‼️

Two (!) positions in my group at @ipz.bsky.social in Zurich

📣 1 postdoc position (3+3 years)
📣 1 PhD position (3,5 years)

Application deadline in early March.

Job ads & details:
tinyurl.com/3p6yhptk

We are an international and friendly department with excellent working conditions

View of Bern

In these turbulent times (just, wtf?), I have some good news. 🥳☀️🌈

I’m very happy to announce that I'll be starting as an assistant professor (TT) at @unibern.bsky.social this February!!

It's been a long journey and I'm very grateful to everyone who has supported me along the way. 🤍

Researcher: "We let the data speak for itself."

Earlier that day:

In a new IZA WP (▶️ docs.iza.org/dp17411.pdf), @rlandersoe.bsky.social and I show that intergenerational income mobility and its underlying mechanisms vary strongly across parents’ income. We present 3 main findings:

1/4 #EconSky #SocSky

Neue Studie legt nahe, dass die atlantische Umwälzzirkulation AMOC „auf Kippkurs ist“ Heute wurde in Science Advances eine neue Studie veröffentlicht. Der Titel sagt schon, worum es geht: „Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course.“ Die Studie folgt einer ...

Neue Studie: Atlantikströmung "auf Kippkurs".
Sie verleiht den jüngsten Berichten noch mehr Gewicht, die starke Warnungen formuliert haben, wie der OECD Climate Tipping Points Report 2022 und der Global Tipping Points Report 2023.
scilogs.spektrum.de/klimalounge/...

Violence Against Women at Work* Abstract. In this paper, we link every police report in Finland to administrative data to identify violence between colleagues, and the economic consequences fo

Probably the most chilling paper I read in 2023, yet essential reading for all of us. academic.oup.com/qje/advance-... #EconSky 📉📈

The persistence of eugenics in mainstream journals highlights major gaps in research integrity When published, bad data can have long lasting negative impacts on research and the wider world. In this post Rebecca Sear, traces the impact of the national IQ dataset and reflects how its continu…

New blog on the problem of the continued proliferation of eugenic ideology in academia, including "national IQ" data.

(Part of) the solution is to prioritise research integrity, rather than the acquiring of grants, papers & profit (which current academic structures incentivise)

Thx for the phone calls last January in the middle of it all! 😅

Indeed, although Switzerland isn’t blessed with Nordic register data 😬

The questions necessary to answer my research questions are already clear, but the survey should be a resource for other researchers as well. Hence, I’m currently collecting questions, so thx for the idea! :)

@endavour: In the spirit of ERC grants « No risk, no fun » motto…😅

Picture of the sun rising over fog

Email announcement

I’m very happy to announce that I won the @snsf-ch.bsky.social Starting Grant! Starting in 2025, I’ll set up an employer-employee panel for Switzerland at @sociology-uzh.bsky.social. If you’re interested in a collaboration, send me a mail!

"The Economics Profession's Socioeconomic Diversity Problem" w/ Robert Schultz is now out in the JEP Here's the paper:

pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/...

and the Twitter thread from Mar 2022 (aka before I was on Bsky - sorry!)

twitter.com/annastansbur...

Toxic workplaces are the main reason women leave academic jobs Women feel driven out by problems with workplace culture more often than by lack of work–life balance. Women feel driven out by problems with workplace culture more often than by lack of work–life...

I could not be less surprised by this. I am a data point. I've watched so many (and I mean TOO MANY) of my women colleagues experience the same. Women networks in academia are so fragile because there's never a sense of security or permanence. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Women who perceive incident as unambiguously discrimination more likely to say they'd report it. Those who see incident as ambiguous more likely to say they'd lean in, change own behav.

One reason why subtle discrim so hard to root out?

Doering ^2 & Tilcsik sociologicalscience.com/articles-v10...