14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new scientific study, women nowadays are far more likely to profess in their fathers' line of work than those who were born at the beginning of the 20th century. That is to say, they are starting to do what young men have been doing for millennia, and that is following in their dads' footsteps. Researchers say that the current trend, which has seen a drastic 14-percent increase over the last 100 years, is only natural and is based on the fact that greater numbers of ladies receive education and start getting qualified to perform jobs they weren't suited for decades ago.
Somehow, the investigators share, young women have found various ways of communicating with their fathers, and are therefore more likely to take on cues from them and to be more influenced by what their parents think. More than a century ago, the array of jobs a lady could take on was relatively limited, when compared to the fields a man could get involved in. But now, most opportunities are open to both genders, even though particular institutions and lines of work still foster discrimination.
“I think it's a good thing that women have an opportunity to work in the same jobs as men, and intergenerational transfers that happen from parents to children seem like they are becoming more equitable,” North Carolina State University (NCSU) economist Melinda Morrill told LiveScience. Women's participation in the general workforce has increased by more than 300 percent over the last century, so a rise in this particular trend should come as no surprise to anyone.
For example, for ladies born between 1900 and 1905, there was a 6-percent chance to become involved in the same line of work as their fathers. But, out of the females born around the mid-1970s, and that are now between 30 and 35 years old, some 20 percent are working in the same field as their dads.
“We don't know if fathers are more likely to talk to their daughters about work because the daughters are now more likely to enter the workforce. It could be that daughters are simply paying more attention to what their fathers have to say about work because the daughters can now consider pursuing this type of career. Or both,” Morrill added.
“If you consider that most women did not work, and that there were a lot of restrictions on where women could work, it is not unreasonable to assume that the correspondence between women and their father's occupations would have gone up over time,” Janet Currie, who is an economist at the Columbia University, agreed.