Friday, October 17, 2008

Sexist and rich

Oct 16, 2008

The man who grows up thinking that a woman's place is in the home could end up well ahead in the salary stakes
If you're a gold digger and going out with a Snag (sensitive new age bloke), you might do well to dump him.

Why? Because he might not be a hottie as far as his bank account goes and may be very much lower down on the salary scale than his macho counterpart you love to hate.

Men who believe that women should stay at home may be labelled old-fashioned, but they could end up well ahead in the salary stakes, said a United States study published in the Journal Of Applied Psychology. It suggested that they will consistently out-earn more modern-thinking men.

There could be a reason for this. A British psychologist said that men who are inclined to wield power in their relationships might do the same at work.

The large and lengthy study was carried out by researchers at the University of Florida. It involved 12,686 men and women interviewed in 1979, when they were aged between 14 and 22, and three times in the following two decades, the last time in 2005.

Both sexes were asked whether they believed a woman's place was in the home, or whether the employment of women was likely to lead to higher rates of juvenile delinquency.

Though more men answered yes to that, the gap narrowed significantly over time, the BBC reported.

Later on in the study, it was found that men who held 'traditional' views were earning significantly more than the other men.

Interestingly - or predictably - women with the opposite opinions earned more than women with 'traditional views'.

'More traditional people may be seeking to preserve the historical separation of work and domestic roles - our results prove that it is, in fact, the case,' said a researcher, Dr Timothy Judge.

Dr Magdalena Zawisza, a psychologist from Winchester University, said that there were a number of theories which might explain the difference.

'It could be that more traditionally-minded men are interested in power, both in terms of access to resources - money in this case - and also in terms of a woman who is submissive,' she said.

'Another theory suggests that employers are more likely to promote men who are the sole earner in preference to those who are not - they recognise that they need more support for their families because they are the breadwinner.'

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