CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 996Gender, Sexuality, and EducationGender and Feminist StudiesCareer Development and Diversity

Indulging Our Gendered Selves? Sex Segregation by Field of Study in 44 Countries

Charles, Maria, Bradley, Karen·2009·American Journal of Sociology
DOI 10.1086/595942
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Data from 44 societies are used to explore sex segregation by field of study. Contrary to accounts linking socioeconomic modernization to a "degendering" of public-sphere institutions, sex typing of curricular fields is stronger in more economically developed contexts. The authors argue that two cultural forces combine in advanced industrial societies to create a new sort of sex segregation regime. The first is gender-essentialist ideology, which has proven to be extremely resilient even in the most liberal-egalitarian of contexts; the second is self-expressive value systems, which create opportunities and incentives for the expression of "gendered selves." Multivariate analyses suggest that structural features of postindustrial labor markets and modern educational systems support the cultivation, realization, and display of gender-specific curricular affinities.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1086/595942

Cites

146 of 146 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The results that Western countries had larger gender differences on the most employed measures were established before the introduction of the evolutionary interpretation for GEP and its focus on gender equality and development.

    “Indeed, the results that Western countries had larger gender differences on the most employed measures were established before the introduction of the evolutionary interpretation for the GEP and its focus on gender equality and development (8–10; see also ref. 29).”

    From Simpson’s gender-equality paradox (2025) · cites this paper as [29]

  • Greater economic prosperity alters educational and occupational structures.

    “Another possible reason as to why economic indicators are particularly sensitive in detecting associations with psychological sex differences concerns the way greater economic prosperity alters educational and occupational structures (e.g., K. Block et al., 2022; Charles & Bradley, 2009; Wong & Charles, 2020).”

    From A Systematic Review and New Analyses of the Gender-Equality Paradox (2025) · cites this paper as Charles & Bradley, 2009

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 148 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Charles, M., & Bradley, K.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
  • Western Washington University (US)
ORCID
Charles, Maria
Venue
American Journal of Sociology
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Published
2009-01
Volume
114
Issue
4
Pages
924-976
ISSN
  • 0002-9602 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5390
DOI
10.1086/595942
OpenAlex
W2090224605
Cited by
996
References
148
Citations by year
2026: 70 · 2025: 91 · 2024: 76 · 2023: 83 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 70 · 2020: 125 · 2019: 58 · 2018: 66 · 2017: 48 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 34 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 22
FWCI
53.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • American Journal of Sociology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Western CEDAR (Western Washington University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Sexuality, and Education
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Career Development and Diversity
Keywords
sex segregation, field of study, gender essentialism, self-expression, educational inequality, modernization, cross-national comparison
MeSH terms
Career Choice, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Curriculum, Economics, Educational Status, Female, Gender Identity, Humans, Sex Factors, Stereotyping, Students, Multivariate Analysis, Developed Countries

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review