A new study says that in a gender-equal society, gender differences would not go away, and would instead increase. The study, published in Science, suggests that gender differences across six key personality traits — including altruism, trust, risk, patience, and positive and negative reciprocity — increase in richer and more gender-equal societies. Meanwhile, in societies that are poorer and less egalitarian, those gender differences shrink, reports The Los Angeles Times.
“Fulfilling basic needs is gender neutral,” said Johannes Hermle, a graduate student in economics at UC Berkeley who worked on the study, according to The Times. However, once those basic needs, such as food, shelter and good health, are met, people begin to follow their own ambitions, and that’s when the differences between men and women become more pronounced.
The data also showed that the gender differences were significantly more pronounced in both richer countries and countries with more gender equality. According to The Times, the study found that gender differences among the six traits were largest in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. They were lowest in Ghana, Iraq, Tanzania, Pakistan and Iran.
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