Workers with a “male brain” earn more money
Forget negotiating tactics and job changes. If you’re looking to raise your salary, the best thing you can do might be to make sure you’ve got the right kind of brain.
Workers with a “male brain” (really) earn a significant amount more than those with a “female brain”, new research has shown, linking a male brain to nearly 10 per cent higher salaries.
Nick Drydakis, a professor at Anglia Ruskin University, has carried out the first UK study into how brain types affect wages:
Overall the results show that employees with higher systemising traits, or a male brain, receive greater financial rewards in the UK labour market.
Over 16,000 participants filled out extensive systemising and empathising questionnaires, adjusting the results for demographics and socioeconomic factors. Based on their score, participants were assigned either a “male” or “female” brain type. A male brain was defined as a more analytic one, and a female one more empathic.
This builds on previous studies that men perform better when analysing systems, whereas women are significantly better at empathising, recognising the thoughts and feelings of others.
People with male brains generally earn more money in sectors like management, IT, and banking. But those with female brains earn more in areas like education and social care:
The results also suggest that men and women in certain occupations face positive wage rewards when their empathising and systemising traits are atypical to their gender, for example men with a female brain working in social care or women with a male brain working in banking.
The study will be published in the next edition of the Manchester School Journal.
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