جنسیت، گرایش جنسی و منافع شغلی: مدارک و شواهد از روابط متقابل آنها

This report documents gender and sexual orientation differences in occupational interests for a large sample of North American college students. The students rated their interests in 26 different occupations. Seventeen of the occupations were of greater interest to males and the remaining nine appealed more to females. Regarding sexual orientation, male homosexuals expressed significantly more interest in all nine female-preferred occupations than did heterosexual males; and, in most cases, bisexual males expressed preferences that were intermediate in this regard. For females, sexual orientation was related to interests in eight occupations. Six of these were in the direction of female homosexuals (or bisexuals) preferring more male-typical occupations. The remaining two occupations – those of accountant and head of a corporation – were actually of greater interest to heterosexual females than to homosexual (or bisexual) females. We conclude that (a) pronounced gender differences exist in people’s interests in many occupations, and (b) there are substantial tendencies for homosexuals (and bisexuals to a lesser degree) to have occupational interests that gravitate toward what is typical of the opposite gender rather than their own gender. These “contra-sex” occupational interests among non-heterosexuals were considerably more pronounced in males than in females.