I thought the standard explanation for this was that in patriarchal societies women get "hard" degrees because that's their only way out of being oppressed as a housewife, and in more egalitarian societies women pursue what they like?
It doesn't have to be one or the other, either. Whether women excel in science and medicine is not the sole indicator of their status in society.
Have you ever wondered, maybe you shouldn't be lecturing "patriarchal backward societies"?
Anyway, in poor societies neither men nor women have time or money to study "history of somalian drug trade" or something. They'd rather work a blue collar job than spending money on such degrees. That's why developing countries have relatively higher fraction of STEM graduates. Not all of them are in STEM out of passion in their hearts.
One thing I appreciate about the west is how everyone seems to be in their STEM fields out of passion. At least excluding those computer programmers from last 10 years of webshit boom.
Life is a short few trips around the sun, then eternal annihilation.
If you really want to ascribe "value" to it: prosperity tends to create chill attitudes. You see this in individuals (nepotism) and in societies. It's just evolutionary economics: genes, ideas, species spend in times of plenty, save in times of drought.
It's perfectly fair to criticize modern Iran. Particularly when it comes to mis-allocating its skilled population and history.
Look at it from the perspective of fitness: if Iran had let these women study and work freely, and had invested its resources in growing its economy instead of a dud of a nuclear programme, might it–not Israel–be the region's hegemon?
> That's why developing countries have many STEM graduates
Number of scientists and engineers per capita is directly propotional to GDP per capita [1].
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GDP-per-capita-vs-number...
I meant the fraction. Do you have a plot of number of college gradutates on the same axes? I am sure it will be a steeper line.
Decent hypothesis, but not substantiated.
In 2020 the fraction of graduates who were STEM in China was 41%, Russia 37%, Germany 36%, Iran 33%, India 30%, and France 26% [1]. If we take the eleven countries in that article's GDP per capita, we find no statistically-significant relationship.
[1] https://cset.georgetown.edu/article/the-global-distribution-...
It would be interesting to contrast how much of them are STEM vs other "real world degrees" that get a job (accounting, hotel management or whatever) vs the "liberal arts" degrees.
> The WEF report identified China, India, the United States, Russia, Iran, Indonesia, and Japan as the top seven STEM graduate-producing countries in the world.
I think the US (and probably Germany too) is an outlier here because of the number of immigrants who arrive to study STEM degrees.
"About 30 percent of STEM degree holders living in the United States are immigrants" [1].
So sigificant as a fraction of immigrants. But not particularly meaningful to the trend. (I suspected the effect you hypothesise might exist within countries. But alas, higher-income households produce more STEM graduates [2].)
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/stem-immigration-diversity-gaps#:~...
[2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/economic-inequalities-amo...
Also, to pursue a hard STEM degree or phd would detract from being a housewife, so no “oppressive” husband would allow that in the first place. Ergo the women pursuing these paths are not oppressed in the first place.
It does not assume that. Even with equal enjoyment of multiple subjects, there's a lot of other factors that affect what you study. And you can enjoy subjects that aren't your favorite.
> Also, to pursue a hard STEM degree or phd would detract from being a housewife, so no “oppressive” husband would allow that in the first place. Ergo the women pursuing these paths are not oppressed in the first place.
What percent of the women in these programs are already married? That counterargument only applies to women that currently have husbands, not women worried about future husbands.
Iran can be a puppet of the USA and have a great economy as well.
For the record, it’s often the case that women to into STEM in countries like Iran and Russia because they are denied opportunity elsewhere.
Can you provide actual statistic to support this claim instead of just saying hip anti-America rhetoric to sound cool?
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms regarding the US infrastructure. I'd even agree with a "most WEIRD countries in the world beat America..." take. But to omit the numerous less privileged countries, or even the less privileged majority part of supposedly powerful countries in order to clown on the US does not sit right with me.
North Korea is absolutely not one of them and you would know if you read even a slight bit about the stories from the defectors, or corroborate their stories with stories from Chinese merchants shipping supplies to North Korea and their interactions with North Korean soldiers.
Another point about STEM: families are more likely to accept, and even encourage, their women to go abroad and study. This is strictly STEM-specific: something like music or cinema wouldn't be accepted and would be social suicide. In my opinion, this is the very reason women push so hard in STEM in these countries.
It's still worth noting that the Iranian government isn't against its people or women pursuing higher education. They definitely encourage it (it's free!). They just want their people to align with their ideals and contribute to their goals.
I'm not commenting on the validity of it or anything, it's just funny.
yanhangyhy•2h ago