Male To Female Ratio

[koreanboy123]

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[NotASerialKiller]

You're worried about being discriminated against as a guy? That's absurd. If anything when there are significantly more competitive female applicants it becomes easier for males, like with vet school. With medicine it's not anywhere near as bad as that, so if there are more women in a class all that means is that more women decided to accept offers there.

[FeministKilljoy]

The stats are a few years old now, but you see the trend from 7 years ago. http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/how-many-get-in/

 

Your sex/gender expression aren't taken into account when you apply to any program, be it Medicine, Dentistry, Physio, OT, Pharmacy, RT, Nursing, etc. But overall, women make up approximately 60% of the student bodies at universities in Canada. Health care is generally a female-dominated field, including Medicine. http://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/women-in-canada-embrace-higher-education-statcan-survey/

[koreanboy123]

 

 

[CalgStudent]

I think this class is somewhere around 50:50

[NotASerialKiller]

It's not about affirmative action, but vet school classes are generally 80%+ female. It's definitely an easier path applying as a man because regardless of policies, they don't want a one gender profession. Medicine there is generally a female skew in the applicants, and therefore there is sometimes a female skew in the actual classes.

[amichel]

Not this conversation again.

[daftjustice]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought women in general have been outnumbering men in post secondary education in general? So this doesn't necessarily surprise me.

 

I remember reading about something about social consequences of this outcome because people tend to partner up with peoples of similar education levels. The growing imbalance between post secondary-educated men and women is creating a sort of scarcity in "even" match-ups.

 

edit: here is a quick source for the US with more nuance in terms of numbers. I think Canada is similar but I'd have to dig more. http://blogs.census.gov/2015/10/07/women-now-at-the-head-of-the-class-lead-men-in-college-attainment/?cid=RS23

[FeministKilljoy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought women in general have been outnumbering men in post secondary education in general? So this doesn't necessarily surprise me.

 

I remember reading about something about social consequences of this outcome because people tend to partner up with peoples of similar education levels. The growing imbalance between post secondary-educated men and women is creating a sort of scarcity in "even" match-ups.

 

edit: here is a quick source for the US with more nuance in terms of numbers. I think Canada is similar but I'd have to dig more. http://blogs.census.gov/2015/10/07/women-now-at-the-head-of-the-class-lead-men-in-college-attainment/?cid=RS23

 

 

I'm sorry, what? So then how we as a society manage back when women weren't allowed into universities, let alone medical schools, before they figured out that our little lady brains are just as capable as men's brains?

 

'Social consequences'. I can't. I think women will just have to settle and marry down, I guess. Or marry each other?

[nbgirl93]

I'm sorry, what? So then how we as a society manage back when women weren't allowed into universities, let alone medical schools, before they figured out that our little lady brains are just as capable as men's brains?

 

'Social consequences'. I can't. I think women will just have to settle and marry down, I guess. Or marry each other?

 

Yeah, I mean considering men have technically been "marrying down" (education-wise) since the beginning of time I can't imagine any real social consequences here. God forbid women have to marry down for a little while lol. Somehow I think society will adapt...  

[daftjustice]

Ayyy, sorry nbgirl93 and Neuroticdoodle, the word 'consequences' wasn't meant to impart a value judgement. (it's also why I put the term "even" in quotation marks - I don't necessarily hold it as my own opinion) I just meant that the current gender imbalance at university have interesting effects in other aspects of peoples' lives. I agree that society will adapt. It has to.


I had to resort to google because I'm half-remembering stuff from my one or two sociology classes, and it is kind of encompassed by a term sociologists call "assortative mating".

From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133976/ :
"Both women and men report that they are most willing to marry someone who is better educated (and has higher income) than themselves, although men are more willing to marry someone with less education. Both sexes also report being least willing to marry a partner who cannot hold a steady job"

And another piece of introductory information on what I was referring to: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-gap-hook-up-culture-female-graduates

 

Honestly, this is a bit of tangent to the dicussion. I haven't given it enough thought nor have I weighed up enough facts, so I'm actually unsure/undecided as to whether or not it is "unfair" or "threatening diversity" that there are more women in medical school than men. Just like I'm unsure it's a "problem" that men still outnumber women in engineering or computer science.

Maybe women have a natural aptitude for medicine over men. Or maybe they have an aptitude for succeeding at all the metrics over men that matter for admission. I don't know, I'm not an expert, and I guessing that no one else on this forum (with a few exceptions) is either. There are all sorts of things that would need to be taken into account to determine the reasons for this disparity . How about student preferences for careers? Learning differences? Differing rates of maturity and school-preparedness? How does this affect readiness for success at post-secondary education? etc., etc.

 

Or maybe, just maybe, there are more qualified female applicants than men who merit admission. It's no harder to believe than any other plausible reason.

 

But for the sake of feelings, we could just pull a Trudeau and say let's make it 50-50, "because it's <insert current year>". (Personally I feel that would disadvantage a lot of qualified women applying to medicine)
 

[nbgirl93]

Not sure how much truth there is to it but I've heard that women tend to perform better than men in med school interviews, so there absolutely could be an aspect of socialization to the gender ratio - that combined with the larger number of women applying in general could explain it. But, like everything else, there are so many factors to consider that there's really no way for us to know for sure, ha. I agree that implementing a 50-50 ratio could be worrisome but then I'm generally pro-affirmitive action for minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, lower income individuals... so even my own opinions on this stuff are complicated at times. My main issue with OP's comment was the implication that being a man could negatively affect his chances at getting in - honestly I think that's a bit preposterous considering, like, the entire history of the world haha.  Sorry to OP if this feels like a pile-on, I've just been hearing this stuff more and more lately and it gets to me a bit.

[daftjustice]

to be fair, we also shouldn't write off the current imbalance and not investigate it, 'because history'.

 

I'm not intrigued/potentially concerned at the gender imbalance at the medical school level as much as I am with the overall imbalance in postsecondary education. The pendulum has swung from a male-favored ratio to a female favored ratio and it's at the very least intellectually interesting as to why that is.

[nbgirl93]

It's definitely interesting from an intellectual perspective, but my point with that comment was that the reason it was male-favoured for so long is because women literally weren't allowed to pursue postsecondary education for such a long time. I think that's an important distinction to make, but again that's just my opinion.

[nbgirl93]

To be clearer - I don't think there's anything wrong with asking questions about why women tend to make up a higher percentage of people pursuing postsecondary education, be it medicine or any other field. There are definitely underlying issues when half of the population is more successful in any endeavour, and it is something we should be researching. My only issue is when we imply (inadvertently or otherwise) that admissions committees are favouring female candidates, rather than considering underlying issues (that could easily be the result of socialization, among many other things) that result in more women applying and/or getting accepted to these programs.

[NotASerialKiller]

Well we're veering away from the thread topic but I think the OP has his answer so that's probably fine.

 

I always just assumed that with the recent (past few decades) push to have everyone capable of going to university doing so, most girls have been going right out of high school. A chunk of 18-year-old boys, however, are attracted to trades and want to work in those fields. Because trades have had a harder time attracting women, (probably because they're still generally seen as male professions, for whatever reason) the proportion of female students in university has risen.

 

And then of course a higher number of female students = a high number of competitive female students = a high number of female students accepted to medical school.

[MSWschnoodle]

to be fair, we also shouldn't write off the current imbalance and not investigate it, 'because history'.

 

I'm not intrigued/potentially concerned at the gender imbalance at the medical school level as much as I am with the overall imbalance in postsecondary education. The pendulum has swung from a male-favored ratio to a female favored ratio and it's at the very least intellectually interesting as to why that is.

 

 

Keep in mind that you have to be careful about what post-secondary institutions are being included when they look at these numbers. Are technical schools/apprentice trades being considered as postsecondary? These schools could be impacting the gender imbalance if they are not counted as postsecondary institutions as many (though not all) of the classes in tech schools/apprentice programs have a greater proportion of male vs. female attendees. It is possible that because the typically 'female dominated' disciplines (human services, nursing, education etc.) are predominantly based in colleges and universities and other 'male dominated' occupations (trades work, carpentry, automotive work etc.) are located in trade schools that the count is being skewed, particularly in Alberta where there has been a HUGE push to get high school students to consider the trades and, until very recently, pursuing a trades diploma/apprenticeship/ticket was just as lucrative, if not more lucrative, than many of the options available at University. 

 

I don't profess to have even the slightest idea about why there is a gender imbalance in admissions right now, but I agree that there could be a number of reasons why. There are gender imbalances throughout the field of medicine (leadership positions are still disproportionately held by men, for example), and I think it is always worth asking questions and investigating what is behind these differences, but I also think it is important that policies are not reactionary. It's also possible that this is just a trend that is part of a pendulum swing and in another decade you will see more men than women in medical school classes. It seems as though there are a handful of schools/researchers starting to unpack this and I am looking forward to seeing how the results unfold.

 

EDIT: NASK beat me to the trades thing while I was typing!   But I honestly think that could account for a chunk of it.

[nbgirl93]

Good point, @NotASerialKiller. A lot of this stuff definitely has to do with gender roles and how society views certain fields (which in turn affects how many men vs. women pursue careers in those fields) - manual labour, engineering/comp sci, nursing and education are often seen as either "male" or "female" degrees and professions, which quite frankly sucks, ha. I think with medicine being as competitive as it is, people tend to focus on the minutiae of what could result in their acceptance/rejection rather than the bigger picture, and that's why this conversation happens so often now. Nobody seems to wonder whether men are at a disadvantage when applying to nursing..

[FeministKilljoy]

Good point, @NotASerialKiller. A lot of this stuff definitely has to do with gender roles and how society views certain fields (which in turn affects how many men vs. women pursue careers in those fields) - manual labour, engineering/comp sci, nursing and education are often seen as either "male" or "female" degrees and professions, which quite frankly sucks, ha. I think with medicine being as competitive as it is, people tend to focus on the minutiae of what could result in their acceptance/rejection rather than the bigger picture, and that's why this conversation happens so often now. Nobody seems to wonder whether men are at a disadvantage when applying to nursing..

 

 

Bingo!

 

Gender constructs in our society are super, duper interesting and is the root of gender-based violence. If anyone wants to learn more, look into Jackson Katz's work on masculinity and violence.

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue?language=en

[eurekaneurosciences]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought women in general have been outnumbering men in post secondary education in general? So this doesn't necessarily surprise me.

 

I remember reading about something about social consequences of this outcome because people tend to partner up with peoples of similar education levels. The growing imbalance between post secondary-educated men and women is creating a sort of scarcity in "even" match-ups.

 

edit: here is a quick source for the US with more nuance in terms of numbers. I think Canada is similar but I'd have to dig more. http://blogs.census.gov/2015/10/07/women-now-at-the-head-of-the-class-lead-men-in-college-attainment/?cid=RS23

Right, I've read somewhere how this particularly affects black women since there's a substantial disparity between them and their male counterparts; black women being one of the group with the highest post-secondary graduation rates while black males are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

[daftjustice]

Also, I suspect that "college educated" is a euphemism for income potential. And even among college graduates income potential varies by degree. Some of the research does attempt to discriminate along those lines.

[koreanboy123]

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[plane]

Well then... apparently guys are just dumber in terms of GPA...

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/part-5-is-affirmative-action-for-men-the-answer-to-enrolment-woes/article4330083/

 

"Medical education statistics collected by the AFMC seem to support his allegation. While women apply to medical school in record numbers - and make up nearly 60 per cent of students admitted - men still stand a better chance of being accepted in every province but three, according to data from the entering class of 2007. They were Alberta, Quebec and Prince Edward Island."

 

Time to move from Alberta right?

 

That data is from 2007, almost 10 years ago. A lot has changed in the admissions processes since then. Also, policies that were implemented to "address" this may have had its effect by now, making that data useful only for comparison.

[BoopityBoop]

A while back Dr. Walker posted something about there being more females than males accepted to medical school but that it was normal considering the number of applications they received from males/females. Over the past few years the number of females have been steadily increasing and I think he said they would take a look at it but not sure if anything was ever posted about it.

Recently new applicant manual has been released and stats are a bit concerning to me (since I'm a male trying to get in med school) since in last 2 years females are close to 2:1 ratio of males (102:56 and 107:61). I realized that there are more female applicants but not that many more. Are females on average more competitive applicants than males or are they getting favored? Thoughts?

 

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but Dr. Walker also backed up that statement by explaining that females performed better on the MMI's in comparison to the male candidates. I do not know if he was specifically referring to UofC's statistics surrounding their MMI, or the literature. Again, I could be wrong and be paraphrasing something I've read on this forum.

 

Also, just an advice/word of caution. Whether it was intentional or not, even suggesting or posing the idea that females candidates are more favoured for their gender/sex alone is, not only rash, but offensive. It's even more ill-considered if you understood the admissions process at UofC, including the structure of the MMI, and still posed that question.