Current Events > Variability hypothesis explains over-rep of women in non-STEM, not men in STEM.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06292-0

Fewer women than men pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), despite girls outperforming boys at school in the relevant subjects. According to the variability hypothesis, this over-representation of males is driven by gender differences in variance; greater male variability leads to greater numbers of men who exceed the performance threshold. Here, we use recent meta-analytic advances to compare gender differences in academic grades from over 1.6 million students. In line with previous studies we find strong evidence for lower variation among girls than boys, and of higher average grades for girls. However, the gender differences in both mean and variance of grades are smaller in STEM than non-STEM subjects, suggesting that greater variability is insufficient to explain male over-representation in STEM. Simulations of these differences suggest the top 10% of a class contains equal numbers of girls and boys in STEM, but more girls in non-STEM subjects.

The variability hypothesis, not to be confused with the "small mean differences lead to whopping differences in the tails" argument (which is statistically pretty bunk and isn't at all supported by the data anyway) is an interesting idea. Title length restrictions didn't allow me to provide enough nuance, should be something like distribution of grades supports the variability hypothesis in... etc..
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If variability hypothesis explains the over rep of women in non-stem fields, why wouldnt the hypothesis hold true for men in STEM related fields? Shouldnt there be consistency of results across fields if the variability hypothesis is likely true? Or are most people in STEM already composed of the upper end of variance in general?
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I mean, explanation is beyond the scope of the paper, but that is the result.

I mean, what's really the case is that the variability hypothesis is supported by distributional qualities in grades, but it doesn't seem to fit with a gender gap. Meanwhile the distributional qualities of non STEM fields fit the gender gap in those fields.
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COVxy posted...

I mean, what's really the case is that the variability hypothesis is supported by distributional qualities in grades, but it doesn't seem to fit with a gender gap. Meanwhile the distributional qualities of non STEM fields fit the gender gap in those fields.

I get that, but I dont get why the variability hypothesis would hold true for non-STEM fields but not for STEM if the hypothesis is indeed viable. This just leads me to wonder if the hypothesis actually has legitimate explanatory power in regards to the gender gap or if its a case of falsely attributing a cause because th data correlates. I understand the paper doesnt go into the explanation of it, just some first thought I had as I was reading.
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If it gets taken seriously by all sides, it's probably wrong. Both sides have reasons (albeit slightly different ones) to try and downplay it if it's on to anything.
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Variability is only one distributional quality, of which there could be many, depending on the distribution. Boys have more variability in all the data presented, but it doesn't cause a disproportionate number of people in the tails.

Of course, since this isn't directly related to the outcome variables, this is really only telling us what is consistent, not even what correlates. Could be completely unrelated to grade/ability distributions.
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DarkTransient posted...

If it gets taken seriously by all sides, it's probably wrong. Both sides have reasons (albeit slightly different ones) to try and downplay it if it's on to anything.

This may be the stupidest post in this topic, and this post exists:
Forgettable posted...

We need to ban the high percentile deviated men from STEM to make things fairer for women.

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COVxy posted...

Variability is only one distributional quality, of which there could be many, depending on the distribution. Boys have more variability in all the data presented, but it doesn't cause a disproportionate number of people in the tails.

Of course, since this isn't directly related to the outcome variables, this is really only telling us what is consistent, not even what correlates. Could be completely unrelated to grade/ability distributions.

Ah so the variability hypothesis could still hold true for STEM if an outcome variable were different, like something other than test scores?
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and how does this solve the problem of getting more women into STEM?

i guess, ultimately, its not looked at as a problem.
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COVxy posted...

DarkTransient posted...

If it gets taken seriously by all sides, it's probably wrong. Both sides have reasons (albeit slightly different ones) to try and downplay it if it's on to anything.

This may be the stupidest post in this topic, and this post exists:
Forgettable posted...

We need to ban the high percentile deviated men from STEM to make things fairer for women.

Inconvenient research getting played down by those it's inconvenient to is something that happens all the damn time.
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Kazi1212 posted...

Ah so the variability hypothesis could still hold true for STEM if an outcome variable were different, like something other than test scores?

What i mean by outcome variable is something like "employment in STEM". This paper did not and could not, correlated inequalities in the distributional aspects of grades to inequalities in the distribution of STEM disparities.

What I mean by it could be driven by something entirely unrelated to ability distributions are factors like stereotype threat or cultural stigmas, etc.
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DarkTransient posted...

Inconvenient research getting played down by those it's inconvenient to is something that happens all the damn time.

The reason your statement is worse is that it seems to be made in earnest.
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