The Relationships Between Gender Ideologies and Course Choice in Higher Education: An Australian Context

Despite efforts to the contrary, the enrolment patterns of Australian students continue to demonstrate gender imbalances across different courses. Efforts to encourage more young women into non-traditional courses such as STEM do not seem to have any significant impact on these trends. In previous research, conformity to social gender norms and work-family gender ideologies have been identified as factors affecting achievement related decisions, such as postsecondary field of study. In the current cross-sectional study, we investigate the relationship between conformity to gender norms and work-family gender ideologies amongst a sample of Australian undergraduate university students (N = 1092). This study invited male and female students to complete both the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory-46 and the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory-45, expanding on previous research that typically prescribed just one inventory for participants. We conclude that conformity to social gender norms influences decisions made about postsecondary field of study.