Throughout the world, the labor market is clearly gender segregated. More research is needed to explain women’s lower interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and particularly to explain men’s lower interest in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education, and the Domestic spheres) majors. We tested self-efficacy (competence beliefs) and social belongingness expectations (fitting in socially) as mediators of gender differences in interest in STEM and HEED majors in a representative sample of 1327 Swedish high school students. Gender differences in interest in STEM majors strongly related to women’s lower self-efficacy for STEM careers and, to a lesser degree, to women’s lower social belongingness expectations with students in STEM majors. Social belongingness expectations also partly explained men’s lower interest in HEED majors, but self-efficacy was not an important mediator of gender differences in interest in HEED. These results imply that interventions designed to lessen gender segregation in the labor market need to focus more on the social belongingness of students in the gender minority. Further, to specifically increase women’s interest in STEM majors, we need to counteract gender stereotypical competence beliefs and assure women that they have what it takes to handle STEM careers.

Objectives: Despite accumulating research on yoga and its positive impact on both physiological and psychological health, it is still unclearhowyoga improves health. Two central components of yoga,yogic breathingandmindfulness, may be important mechanisms by which individuals learn to cope with their daily stressors, and thereby reduce their risk of developing stress-related illness. In this study, we experimentally tested whether yogic breathing as a stress coping mechanism and increased mindfulness mediates the psychological health benefits of a yoga interventionMethods: Seventy-one middle-aged adults (78% women;M_age53.5 ± 6.9) who self-rated as moderately stressed were randomly assigned to either a control group or a 5-week yoga intervention called the Yoga and Mindfulness Intervention (YOMI) program. The YOMI combines 60 min of yin yoga practice with 30 min of psychoeducation, administered twice weekly; participants also completed a 5-min breathing exercise as homework daily.Results: The YOMI group showed greater reductions in anxiety, depression, and sleep problems compared with controls (R²varied between .09 to .23), and these reductions were statistically mediated by increased use of yogic breathing and a related increase in participants’ overall mindfulness.Conclusions: These mediation results provide new insights into how yoga improves psychological health and suggests promising implications for policymakers aimed at improving public health.

To reduce the horizontal gender segregation in the labor market, we need to understand gender differences in career choice. The current study followed a large group of Swedish adolescents as they made their first educational choice, and tested for mediation of gender differences using measures of ability beliefs and career goals, which were collected shortly prior to the choice.Findings revealed strong gender differences in high-tech ability beliefs (e.g. computers), which combined with social ability beliefs (e.g. listening skills) and, to a lesser degree, communal career goals (e.g. helping) explained gender differences in educational choice. A new measure of career goal choice revealed that a majority of the adolescents prefer agentic (e.g. status) over communalgoal fulfilment if made to choose, although this preference was stronger amongst the boys. Our results support social cognitive career theory, expectancy-value theory and the goal congruity perspective as they demonstrate how gender differences in educational choice can be understood in terms of differences in competence beliefs and career goals. Furthermore, the results suggest that one reason why gender balanced programs appeal to adolescents is their perceived ability to fulfill both agentic and communal career goals

The labor market is strongly gender segregated with few women working in the tech sector (e.g., IT) and few men working in the care sector (e.g., nursing). We tested the hypothesis that middle school students strongly associate technology with men and caregiving with women in a Swedish context (i.e., a country that scores high in gender equality indices), and that these gender stereotypes for tech relate to girls’ lower interest in tech-focused education. We measured technology/caregiving gender stereotypes with implicit (the Implicit Association Test) and explicit (self-report) measures in a sample of middle school students (n = 873). The results supported the main hypotheses, and corroborate Eccles’s expectancy value theory, indicating that the endorsement of implicit gender stereotypes may serve as barriers to pursuing masculine-typed career paths for women. Further, a sample of middle school teachers (n = 86) showed stronger implicit gender stereotypes than the students. Unexpectedly, middle school girls with a foreign background showed no implicit gender stereotypes, which we discuss in relation to the gender-equality paradox. These findings suggest that to fulfill the recruitment needs of an increasingly digitalized world, the tech-industry and other stakeholders should put effort into counteracting the stereotype that technology is for men.