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Comment by kharms | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. One of the theories I've heard regarding a possible decline in educational quality in the US was that in the 50s, the most qualified women became educators due to a lack of other jobs, while today they become CEOs, etc. On the surface this data seems to contradict that.

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I wonder how much of if the gender disparity in education is pure preconceived notions. "All my teachers were women", so women are more 'teacherly' and more likely to be hired.

More recent fears over men in proximity to kids probably reinforces this.

I've certainly heard the theory you suggest and it does seem to make sense. Perhaps the data doesn't show that because as smart women have 'left' teaching they've been backfilled by the additional women joining the workforce that didn't used to be there?

Interesting questions around the massively skewed jobs.

I would say this sort of thing goes well beyond gender and even "demographic" preconceived notions. I'm a freelance marketer and since I've had success in paid social in the past I am now the "paid social" guy despite the fact that I have a much broader skill set with areas I'm arguably more skilled in. I think human brains are lazy and just desperately want to put things in buckets.

I've wondered the same, from a different angle:

What happens to the structure of society when a larger fraction of intelligent people have access to higher education, the ability to easily relocate, and a financial incentive to work in finance, science, engineering, and applied-academia?

How does that impact legislative and executive politics, community groups, and education (direct and educating the educators)?

Interesting to think about in the context of overall rate of "moving" in the US has been declining for a while[0[

[0] https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2016/comm/cb16...

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