Research from psychologists at Pennsylvania State University suggests that sex hormones impact what profession an individual will likely choose as a career. The research focuses on a binary set of options given to teenagers and young adults: thing-oriented professions versus people-oriented professions. Thing-oriented professions include science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, commonly known as STEM careers.
Researchers asked the participants to rate various occupations grouped into categories used by vocational counselors: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. Realistic and investigative categories manifest thing-oriented careers such as farmer and scientist, while social and artistic categories suggest people-oriented jobs such as teacher and artist, and the enterprising category includes occupations such as realtor and hotel manager.
Pennsylvania State University Psychology Prof. Sheri Berenbaum studied individuals who had more androgen compared to their siblings. Androgens are male hormones which play an essential role in sexual differentiation and development. People with a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia exhibit higher levels of androgen because they were exposed in the uterus to more than normal the amount.
Females who had this condition expressed a greater interest in thing-oriented, stereotypically male, careers like those in STEM. Females who did not have this condition picked people-oriented careers such as teaching or social work.
"We found there is a biological influence on that interest toward things, so maybe women aren't going into STEM careers because what they're interested in isn't consistent with an interest in STEM careers," Adriene Beltz, a graduate student working with Berenbaum, told Science Daily. "Maybe we could show females ways in which an interest in people is compatible with STEM careers."
The NIH-supported research also suggests that the amount of androgen present is directly proportional to the types of careers females choose. Females with more androgen than other CAH individuals indicated the most interest in thing-oriented careers.
"At first, I thought the statistic was a little flawed, but after considering it, it's true," third-student College student Amber Hamilton said. "Women are more likely to work in a people-oriented environment ... It's sad that this stereotype holds true in modern time but it's a tradition that has been ongoing for quite a while".
This "tradition" seems biologically linked to hormones at a molecular level and the level of interest in certain occupations for women and those for men is stitched into each individual's DNA.
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