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The author explores how the gender gap in aspirations for scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) work changes with societal affluence. Over-time data on cohorts of eighth graders in 32 countries reveal that aspirations for mathematically related work become more gender differentiated as societal affluence grows. This relationship holds controlling for students' social class backgrounds, mathematical achievement, and affinity for school, and it is not explained by cross-national differences in the economic integration of women, gender stereotyping of science, or Internet access. Observed patterns of gender segregation reflect more than just women's greater freedom to indulge tastes for non-STEM work in affluent societies; tastes are themselves more gendered in these contexts.

Around the globe and starting in the affluent West, women have made major, even revolutionary, strides toward equality with men. However, while access to major social institutions has equalized dramatically, expanded participation in labor markets and educational systems often comes in the form of gender-differentiated roles within these institutions. This article reviews international trends on different indicators of women's economic status and considers explanations for observed patterns. The forms of equality that tend to persist in advanced industrial societies are those that are readily interpreted as outcomes of free choices by formally equal but innately different men and women.

Looking at science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields across countries challenges the assumption that women in more economically and culturally modern societies enjoy greater equality. Rather, freedom to choose a career may paradoxically cause women in affluent Western democracies to construct and replicate stereotypically gendered self-identities.

How have conceptualizations of "culture" been incorporated into sociological studies of class, racial/ethnic, and gender inequality? This article first reviews the development of American scholarship on social inequalities during the past half century and the role of cultural analysis in this development. It goes on to consider culture-related responses to three central questions in the subdiscipline and closes with an examination of currently contentious issues. Likely future developments include movement toward more fluid, contextually contingent conceptualizations of class, race, and gender and an increasing prominence of analyses that explore the dynamic interplay between individual, interactional, and institutional processes of inequality.

How have conceptualizations of 'culture' been incorporated into sociological studies of class, racial/ethnic, and gender inequality? This article first reviews the development of American scholarship on social inequalities during the past half century and the role of cultural analysis in this development. It goes on to consider culture-related responses to three central questions in the subdiscipline and closes with an examination of currently contentious issues. Likely future developments include movement toward more fluid, contextually contingent conceptualizations of class, race, and gender and an increasing prominence of analyses that explore the dynamic interplay between individual, interactional, and institutional processes of inequality. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2008 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

Scholars and policy-makers increasingly treat occupational sex segregation as a generic indicator of female economic disadvantage. This view is difficult to reconcile with evidence that levels of sex segregation are lower in reputably 'gender-traditional' countries such as Italy, Japan, and Portugal than in 'progressive' Sweden and the United States. Understanding such seemingly anomalous patterns requires a two-dimensional conceptualization of occupational sex segregation - in particular, an analytical distinction between vertical and horizontal gender inequalities. Based on data from 10 industrialized countries, claims regarding (1) the hybrid nature of sex segregation and (2) the cultural and structural factors that influence its various components are empirically assessed. Results confirm that unequal distributions across the manual-non-manual divide ('horizontal segregation') and status differentials within these sectors ('vertical segregation') together account for a considerable share of occupational gender inequality. Gender-egalitarian cultural norms are associated with lower levels of vertical segregation in the non-manual sector, while postindustrial economic structures coincide with greater horizontal segregation (and more vertical segregation of non-manual occupations). The complex horizontal and vertical dynamics revealed here cast further doubt on unidimensional conceptualizations of sex segregation. They also provide the key for deciphering some long-standing empirical puzzles in the field.

This trend piece is an exploration of the evolution of attitudes on the division of domestic labor since the turn of the twenty-first century.

Scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) occupations are strongholds of gender segregation in the contemporary United States. While many Americans regard this segregation as natural and inevitable, closer examination reveals a great deal of variability in the gendering of STEM fields across time, space, and demographic groups. This article assesses how different theoretical accounts accord with the available evidence on the gender composition of scientific and technical fields. We find most support for accounts that allow for a dynamic interplay between individual-level traits and the broader sociocultural environments in which they develop. The existing evidence suggests, in particular, that Western cultural stereotypes about the nature of STEM work and STEM workers and about the intrinsic qualities of men and women can be powerful drivers of individual aptitudes, aspirations, and affinities. We offer an illustrative catalog of stereotypes that support women's STEM-avoidance and men's STEM-affinity, and we conclude with some thoughts on policy implications.

The contours and correlates of sex segregation in higher education are explored using data from twelve advanced industrialized countries. Tertiary sex segregation is examined across two dimensions: field of study (horizontal segregation) and tertiary level (vertical segregation). The authors argue that the different aspects of female status in higher education (e.g., overall enrollments, representation at the postgraduate level, and representation in traditionally male-dominated fields of study) do not covary because each variable is affected in distinct ways by structural and cultural features commonly associated with "modernity. " In particular, (1) ideals of universalism do more to undermine vertical segregation than horizontal segregation, and (2) some modern structural features may actually exacerbate specific forms of sex segregation. Consistent with these arguments, results suggest strongly integrative effects of gender-egalitarian cultural attitudes on distributions across tertiary levels, and weaker, less uniform cultural effects on distributions across fields of study (one notable exception being a strong positive effect on women's representation in engineering programs). Two modern structural features—diversified tertiary systems and high rates of female employment—show segregative effects in some fields and institutional sectors. Overall, few across-the-board integrative or segregative effects can be discerned that would lend support to evolutionary conceptualizations of gender stratification. Modern cultural and structural pressures are manifested unevenly and in contextually contingent ways.

In this study, the empirical validity of three models of domestic task-sharing was evaluated for a sample of young Swiss couples. Variables measuring spouses' relative social and economic resources were found to have little impact on the division of labor, and sex role traditionality was found to have only a moderate effect. The variable with the strongest independent impact on Swiss husbands' domestic participation was the presence of children. Contrary to the results of most recent U.S. studies, however, sex role patterns were found to be more traditional in families with children. Men, furthermore, shared somewhat less in domestic chores the longer they had been married. Net of these factors, wives' labor force participation was found to have little effect on the division of labor in these families. Results point to the importance of family cyclic processes, and suggest that cultural factors may mediate the relationship between particular variables and the household division of labor.