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Why do girls go for poorly paid degrees?

You completely straw-manned my statement there.
High level health and teaching jobs for instance, which are predominantly female, are considerably undervalued financially in our society.
Thus, wages are often not in line with skill required - or the importance of the job in maintaining and developing society.

They aren't undervalued. They have a lesser value because there are more people are capable of being teachers, than of being bankers for instance.

I mean, teaching and nursing are the two examples you've given. To be a nurse, the minimum entry requirements are 5 GCSEs and 2 A levels. And teaching has to be the easiest ride in the world. You can become a teacher at a secondary school with any degree in the subject you wanna teach, and less than that if you wanna teach primary, and that's before you even mention the huge amounts of leave and job security. Doesn't exactly compare to what's asked of prospective investment bankers, does it?

Reply 181

fefssdf

20

I'm a female and I picked maths purely because of the career prospects ; I wanna be dirty rich

Reply 182

hellodave5

19

Original post by Luke Kostanjsek

They aren't undervalued. They have a lesser value because there are more people are capable of being teachers, than of being bankers for instance.

I mean, teaching and nursing are the two examples you've given. To be a nurse, the minimum entry requirements are 5 GCSEs and 2 A levels. And teaching has to be the easiest ride in the world. You can become a teacher at a secondary school with any degree in the subject you wanna teach, and less than that if you wanna teach primary, and that's before you even mention the huge amounts of leave and job security. Doesn't exactly compare to what's asked of prospective investment bankers, does it?

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

That is true, but nursing relative to something more similar... say a counterpart - say using average salary I assume it still comes off at a loss. Same for teaching.
Good point about teaching requirements - but even to those requirements (not competitive but still considerable: 3 years UG, 1 year PG, 1 year training) they are relatively under valued. I don't think its very fair to compare anything to investment banking as is a very exclusive field based principally on the attainment of money.

Teachers in say, Sweden, are valued considerably more than here - equal to that of medical doctors - and are required to hold a PhD as far as I understand (educational achievement to match pay scale).

I suppose my point is that it may be that female led professions perhaps have a down-regulation of pay and arbitrarily judged financial importance (ratio of societal importance :tongue:

ay) - with concordant down regulation of entry requirements into such professions (to match low levels of pay).

Sorry if anything is incorrect; only formulating ideas. Hope it makes sense

Reply 183

username738914

21

Original post by fefssdf

I'm a female and I picked maths purely because of the career prospects ; I wanna be dirty rich

Not sure how a maths degree (by itself) = lots of money

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 184

Trapz99

21

Original post by fefssdf

I'm a female and I picked maths purely because of the career prospects ; I wanna be dirty rich

Maths is indeed an amazing degree. But I'm pretty sure it's "filthy rich" and not "dirty rich" lol

Reply 185

fefssdf

20

Original post by Trapz99

Maths is indeed an amazing degree. But I'm pretty sure it's "filthy rich" and not "dirty rich" lol

Thanks Yh that does sound better :smile:

! dirty rich sounds well dirty

Reply 186

EdwardBarfield9

20

They go for gender studies even though they have equal opportunity to do a STEM field so they can complain that not enough women are in STEM fields ;-)

Spoiler

Reply 187

biglad2k16

2

Original post by Princepieman

Not sure how a maths degree (by itself) = lots of money

Posted from TSR Mobile

Because maths involves numbers. Money is counted in numbers. Numbers = numbers so maths = money

Reply 188

Horsedobbin

14

They want to act in science fiction films and take out takeaway curries instead of cooking properly for themselves-it's all totally unrealistic. How many science fiction acting parts are there going in any one day? One ? Two? maybe even less than that. Learn to cook your own food instead of paying ridiculous amounts for stale take aways.

Reply 189

fefssdf

20

Original post by biglad2k16

Because maths involves numbers. Money is counted in numbers. Numbers = numbers so maths = money

Thanks for standing up for me man :wink:

Reply 190

username738914

21

Original post by biglad2k16

Because maths involves numbers. Money is counted in numbers. Numbers = numbers so maths = money

#logic

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 191

Trapz99

21

Original post by biglad2k16

Because maths involves numbers. Money is counted in numbers. Numbers = numbers so maths = money

What a clever lad

Reply 192

swervybang

3

Original post by Princepieman

Not sure how a maths degree (by itself) = lots of money

Posted from TSR Mobile

Not by itself but with good extracurricular and personality its gonna lead to bare cash cash you get me

Reply 193

username2130115

16

because they can marry a guy and not work

Reply 194

username1177050

20

Well from the girls I know who have done poor degrees, they either want to be a kept woman so to speak, were the husband is the main breadwinner and they make use of the joint account, or, particularly in the case of ethnic minority women such as Muslims etc then they expect to be in the homestead anyway and so just do a degree to part etc for 3 years. This is just from my experiences and Dosent apply to all women so mods don't send me a card and sjw's please don't lambast me lol.

Reply 195

Luke Kostanjsek

11

Original post by hellodave5

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

That is true, but nursing relative to something more similar... say a counterpart - say using average salary I assume it still comes off at a loss. Same for teaching.
Good point about teaching requirements - but even to those requirements (not competitive but still considerable: 3 years UG, 1 year PG, 1 year training) they are relatively under valued. I don't think its very fair to compare anything to investment banking as is a very exclusive field based principally on the attainment of money.

Teachers in say, Sweden, are valued considerably more than here - equal to that of medical doctors - and are required to hold a PhD as far as I understand (educational achievement to match pay scale).

I suppose my point is that it may be that female led professions perhaps have a down-regulation of pay and arbitrarily judged financial importance (ratio of societal importance :tongue:

ay) - with concordant down regulation of entry requirements into such professions (to match low levels of pay).

Sorry if anything is incorrect; only formulating ideas. Hope it makes sense

I understand where you're coming from - and I certainly don't mean to belittle nurses or teachers, who do an incredibly important and valuable job - but it does ultimately come down to how many people are capable of doing the job.

I mean, let's say we hypothetically increase the amount nurses are paid so that their starting salary is £60,000 per annum, with 30 days of leave. Suddenly, you'll see an influx of people training to be nurses, cause suddenly it's an incredibly well paid job with great perks. Of course, then you've got loads and loads of qualified nurses, more than you actually need. With the abundance of supply, employers start dropping wages or reducing perks in other areas of the contract, because with so many qualified nurses they'll still be able to find someone to fill the position. And sooner or later you reach an equilibrium where the contract is sufficiently sweet that we've got enough nurses training to meet demand, but not more. You'd find this equilibria would be more or less back where we started.

I actually agree with you about teachers, although I think the problem is the other way around. The issue with teaching in Britain is that it's too easy to get into. The overwhelming majority of those who teach a given subject are those who didn't do well enough at uni to go into a career actually using that subject, cause if you're teaching out of a passion for the academic side of the subject then lets be honest, you'd be a university lecturer. There's a reason for the old adage 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. (And those who can't teach, teach PE :tongue:

)'. What this means is your teachers are almost always not especially competent at their subject.

They should indeed increase teachers pay to attract better applicants, but it should be coupled with significantly toughening the requirements for teaching. They also have far too much job security imo, which serves only to keep the **** teachers teaching.

Reply 196

hellodave5

19

Original post by Luke Kostanjsek

I understand where you're coming from - and I certainly don't mean to belittle nurses or teachers, who do an incredibly important and valuable job - but it does ultimately come down to how many people are capable of doing the job.

I mean, let's say we hypothetically increase the amount nurses are paid so that their starting salary is £60,000 per annum, with 30 days of leave. Suddenly, you'll see an influx of people training to be nurses, cause suddenly it's an incredibly well paid job with great perks. Of course, then you've got loads and loads of qualified nurses, more than you actually need. With the abundance of supply, employers start dropping wages or reducing perks in other areas of the contract, because with so many qualified nurses they'll still be able to find someone to fill the position. And sooner or later you reach an equilibrium where the contract is sufficiently sweet that we've got enough nurses training to meet demand, but not more. You'd find this equilibria would be more or less back where we started.

I actually agree with you about teachers, although I think the problem is the other way around. The issue with teaching in Britain is that it's too easy to get into. The overwhelming majority of those who teach a given subject are those who didn't do well enough at uni to go into a career actually using that subject, cause if you're teaching out of a passion for the academic side of the subject then lets be honest, you'd be a university lecturer. There's a reason for the old adage 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. (And those who can't teach, teach PE :tongue:

)'. What this means is your teachers are almost always not especially competent at their subject.

They should indeed increase teachers pay to attract better applicants, but it should be coupled with significantly toughening the requirements for teaching. They also have far too much job security imo, which serves only to keep the **** teachers teaching.

Thanks for the message.

I agree with point on supply and demand. Just to rephase, I suppose my point concerns the gateway or threshold of acceptance into being able to supply - I feel it may be lower than it should be (entry reqs etc.).

I.e. why should being a university lecturer (more male orientated usually) be considerably more important than teaching at a lower level? Sure the level of stuff is hard, but why shouldn't we have higher expectations of teachers to be as good as uni lecturers.

Teaching in particular though has become almost like a highly qualified factory line job here (exaggerating a bit but it holds). Which is very unfortunate.

At the moment bit busy so not sure if there are more examples of the underappreciation of 'female' dominated jobs.
I know for things like clinical psychology and medicine this is certainly not the case - in that entry requirements and pay are both high. But maybe these are exceptions.

In the same line of thought I find interesting also the conceptualisation of psychology (my degree) in this country too . Approx. 9/10 were female. Here, psychology is often very undervalued in the way society perceives it as a degree (jack of all trades degree) with variable entry requirements - but in Poland it is characterised in a similar way to Medicine and is more practical.

Again, just trails of thought. Social construct stuff isn't my forte either lol

Reply 197

Luke Kostanjsek

11

Original post by hellodave5

Thanks for the message.

I agree with point on supply and demand. Just to rephase, I suppose my point concerns the gateway or threshold of acceptance into being able to supply - I feel it may be lower than it should be (entry reqs etc.).

I.e. why should being a university lecturer (more male orientated usually) be considerably more important than teaching at a lower level? Sure the level of stuff is hard, but why shouldn't we have higher expectations of teachers to be as good as uni lecturers.

Teaching in particular though has become almost like a highly qualified factory line job here (exaggerating a bit but it holds). Which is very unfortunate.

At the moment bit busy so not sure if there are more examples of the underappreciation of 'female' dominated jobs.
I know for things like clinical psychology and medicine this is certainly not the case - in that entry requirements and pay are both high. But maybe these are exceptions.

In the same line of thought I find interesting also the conceptualisation of psychology (my degree) in this country too . Approx. 9/10 were female. Here, psychology is often very undervalued in the way society perceives it as a degree (jack of all trades degree) with variable entry requirements - but in Poland it is characterised in a similar way to Medicine and is more practical.

Again, just trails of thought. Social construct stuff isn't my forte either lol

Well, university lecturing will always have a higher threshold of entry than teaching for two reasons. Firstly, there's the obvious fact that university lecturers are teaching far harder work than school teachers, so they quite simply have to be more intelligent. Secondly, university lecturers have to be do research. Especially in science subjects, you're pushing the boundary of knowledge. It is obviously more demanding.

Teaching is a piss-take, and it's half the reason why education standards are so low in Britain.

Again, for whatever reasons - there's growing evidence that it's rooted in biology, but it's still too early to say for sure - the jobs women tend to dominate tend to be 'easier', in the sense that more people are capable of doing them.

The view people have about psychology is less about the actual degree or the fact that women dominate it though. It's viewed a little scathingly because pretty much every uni offers it, and comparitively few graduates actually use their degrees. Psychology is an incredibly good degree if you're doing it to go on and work further in the field of psychology. But the overwhelming majority of psychology students are doing it because they couldn't think of anything else to do; that's what damages the reputation of the degree. In countries where there are far fewer psychology graduates, a psychology degree typically leads to a psychology job, which makes the degree more reputable.