I have a developing conjecture that in order to address the perceived problem of higher male per capita in certain occupations, attracting males into occupations with higher female ratios is as important as incentivizing female participation in high-male occupations.
I'm no mathematician but I see it in terms of system numbers: Given a set of occupations with different sex ratios, to change the ratio of any specific occupation the ratios of other occupations must also change.
Incentivizing a specific sex population into an occupation may work for a while; they can boost the overall population in that occupation over the occupations the incentivized population would otherwise enter. However, the true outcome is an overpopulation in the incentivized occupation and underpopulation in others. The difference between incentivized and "natural" population size for an occupation becomes headwinds for any person to enter an occupation resulting in reduced incentive efficiency.
In a simplistic rational "Homo economicus" world some portion of the male population that would enter the female-incentivized occupation would move to other occupations and the sex ratios would change. If it is true that males are discriminated against in occupations with high female ratios, then this would represent an even higher hurdle than the factors that result in sex ratio variance in occupations.
I'm no mathematician but I see it in terms of system numbers: Given a set of occupations with different sex ratios, to change the ratio of any specific occupation the ratios of other occupations must also change.
Incentivizing a specific sex population into an occupation may work for a while; they can boost the overall population in that occupation over the occupations the incentivized population would otherwise enter. However, the true outcome is an overpopulation in the incentivized occupation and underpopulation in others. The difference between incentivized and "natural" population size for an occupation becomes headwinds for any person to enter an occupation resulting in reduced incentive efficiency.
In a simplistic rational "Homo economicus" world some portion of the male population that would enter the female-incentivized occupation would move to other occupations and the sex ratios would change. If it is true that males are discriminated against in occupations with high female ratios, then this would represent an even higher hurdle than the factors that result in sex ratio variance in occupations.