Gendered job listings: Are women turning away from 'masculine' roles?

Gendered words in job listings might be contributing to the under-representation of women in certain occupations and positions.

That's according to a recent report from a German research body, The Institute for Employment Research (IAB), published at the end of September.

"Gender stereotyping in job ads can lead to a self-selection bias, where women choose not to apply for these jobs, even if they meet the qualifications, due to the perception that they are not a good fit," found the study.

It added that "stereotypically male job ads" can also "lead to a bias in the hiring process, where women are unfairly evaluated as being less competent or less suitable for the job".

IAB researchers evaluated listings for 710 occupations published on one of Germany's largest online job portals, BA Jobbörse.

They found that more jobs were actually gendered towards women, rather than centred around 'masculine' language.

Even so, the report found that in certain fields such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths), the majority of job descriptions used "masculine" terms.

Listings in health and social services were linguistically "feminine" - while leadership positions across all occupations were more likely to use "masculine" language.

What makes language gendered?

When deciding whether adverts were targeted towards men or women, researchers separated words into "agentic" and "communal" categories.

Communal characteristics emphasise warmth and community, whereas agentic characteristics prioritise decisiveness and personal growth.

"Specifically, social-psychological research has shown that men are more commonly associated with agentic characteristics, while women are often associated with communal characteristics," said IAB researchers.

Based on existing gender studies, they devised a list of words that fell into these two categories, before analysing their presence in job listings.

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Most experts would say that the gendered association of words is more problematic than the presence of these terms in job adverts.

For instance, some jobs will require the candidate to be "assertive". The problem is that this quality is considered "masculine", rather than the fact that it appears in the listing at all.

"For many jobs, there is a need for skills classified as communal or agentic so therefore such skills should be mentioned in the job text," said Dr Michael Stops, researcher at IAB.

However, he added that where certain formulations are "not necessary to describe the job", employers should consider excluding those from adverts if they discourage applicants on a gender basis.

Stops also argued that more could be done to encourage candidates to apply for jobs where gender stereotypes could be an obstacle.

He explained that, according to other studies, men are not affected by the gendered wording of job ads - unlike women.

These results were not tested in the recent report.

Gender neutral language

As in other EU member states, employers in Germany aren't allowed explicitly to specify a gender preference in job adverts.

Wording must be neutral, which has led to the use of the "gender star".

Like many other languages, German modifies nouns to reflect gender.

For instance, a male teacher is referred to as a "Lehrer", whereas a woman in this role would be called a "Lehrerin".

When using the plural form, the masculine construction takes preference, even when a group consists of both men and women.

To be more inclusive, one solution is to add an asterix to nouns.

Instead of absorbing the female form into the masculine, both are written - Lehrer*in.

This has caused controversy in Germany, with some claiming that gender-sensitive language is undermining linguistic accuracy.

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A root in education

According to Professor Alexandra Scheele from Universität Bielefeld's Faculty of Sociology, language in job listings can feed into occupational gender divisions.

She nonetheless highlighted the primary role that education plays.

"When choosing vocational training opportunities after school, women are already choosing from a smaller range of jobs," she told Euronews.

"Boys and girls are still treated differently at school. And new studies show even if a girl has the same grades in mathematics as a boy, she tends to consider herself not as good at this subject. So this stereotyping already exists in education."

Going forward, she argued it would be interesting to look more closely at the qualification profiles of women choosing not to apply for jobs framed using "masculine" language.

"Women tend to choose professions in job advertisements that already meet their existing qualifications," she said.

Professor Scheele also explained that on the hiring end, the "similar to me" approach is still very prevalent.

"Those seeking a professional successor often already have in mind someone like them. And if the role was previously filled by a man, they are likely to look for a man again."

Making language more inclusive, according to Scheele, is just one aspect of tackling gender stereotypes that feed into professional imbalances.

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