Psychologist and author Steven Pinker isn't the only author in his family. Released this month, his sister Susan Pinker's new book advocates for "women's professional advancement on their own terms." The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap, released this month, suggests that the "Vanilla Male Model" of success isn't fulfilling or ( Read more... )

Financial columnist Sandra Block (2008) discusses the pitfalls of filing for early benefits from Social Security, an issue facing many of the Baby Boomers (who are now 44-62). Block examines two different mortality differences: the gap between men and women (see 9/28/06), and the gap between unmarried and married men (see 1/10/07)). Both of these ( Read more... )

As we've discussed before, women (in general) tend to take more time out of work than men. However, there is at least one reason why men may be more likely to call in sick than women. A new survey by Harris Interactive (2008) found that men were more likely (11% to 5%) to call in sick in order to (or as a result of) watching a sporting event ( Read more... )

Laaksonen et al (2008) studied City of Helsinki employees over a period of 3-5 years to examine differences in illness-related absenteeism. For medical leave over 60 days, there was no gender difference, but women were 46% more likely to take "self-certified" sick leave and 34% more likely to take medically certified sick leave. Laaksonen told ( Read more... )

A Canadian article leads with the headline: "Women offenders more likely to commit property crimes than men" (Prince George Citizen, 2008). The article is based on a new report from Statistics Canada (2008)) which found that 47% of females accused of a crime by Canadian police were accused of property crime, compared to 39% of males accused by ( Read more... )

The Telegraph (UK 2008) reports on a study released ahead of print today on the website of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. "Gender and variation in activity rates of hospital consultants" found that female doctors in Britain's National Health Service saw about 20% fewer patients per year than male doctors. This finding led the ( Read more... )

"There is no such thing as an `average' male or `average' female," says Dr Ray Glennon (Stuff, 2008) of psychometric firm SHL. Analysis of results from the firm's popular occupational personality questionnaire (OPQ) (n = 6,215, 42% women) found "near-identical responses from men and women, with none of the traditional gender stereotypes" (NZHerald ( Read more... )

An Don Monkerud (2007), blogging for Alternet trots out the oft-repeated complaint that Americans don't get as much vacation time as people in other countries -- and that they don't take what they do get. His September column makes the uncited claim that one third of Americans "don't take their allotted vacation and 37 percent never take more than ( Read more... )

The website "Make Mine a Million $ Business" (M3) is part of the "Count Me In [for Women's Economic Independence]" program founded by American Express. The "Count Me In" program is a not-for-profit microloan provider; M3 "provides access to money, mentoring, marketing and technology tools that women entrepreneurs need to help grow their ( Read more... )

Wang et al (2007) attempted a screening and telephone intervention strategy to reduce depression in the workplace. Wang's group found that workers who were screened and treated for depression missed less work and were less likely to leave their jobs. No gender differences were reported, although Wang's group did find a higher proportion of women ( Read more... )