A study from Anglia Ruskin University has found that the key to women earning more is to think like a man. The study found that people with a so-called male brain have higher salaries than those with a female brain.
The study which was carried out by researcher Nick Drydakis centred around a previous study by Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University which found that both men and women can ‘male brains’ known as Type-S brains or ‘female brains’ known as Type-E brains.
People with male brains (Type-S) tend to be better at analysing information while those with female brains (Type-E) excel at recognising others’ feelings.
However, it should be noted that despite the labels, not all men have a ‘male brain’ and not all women have a ‘female brain’.
Dr Drydakis found that men with male brains earn 9.8% more than men with female brains.
Dr Drydakis also found that women with men brains earn 6.3% more than women with female brains.
The study also found that having a male brain brings higher salaries in management, administration, IT, engineering and banking while having a female brain brings higher salaries in teaching, social work, skills and customer services.
So how do we differentiate between people with male brains and those with female brains.
People with male brains like to make to-do lists, answer honestly when asked “does my bum loom big in this?”, prefer to read non-fiction, notice grammatical errors and find maps easy to read.
People with female brains find it easy to chat to someone they have just met, can sense when someone is intruding, lack interest in the technical details of a new computer, camera or other gadgets, focus on beauty of paintings rather than the artists’ technique and have little interest in the dates of key historical events.
The research was published by the IZA, the German-based Institute for the Study of Labour.
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