After being described as a stay at home dad, science blogger David Munger, decided to take on whether or not being described as a stay at home dad verse a stay at home dad, hurts ones credibility and reputation in their careers. A question many women have known the answer to for a long time, or simply put, the work women do at home is not a respected part of the capitalist economy. It is invisible, unless you are a wingnut and believe that women belong in the house, and your ideal woman is June Cleaver. So he did a little experiment to prove his hypothesis.
The trick to the study was that readers saw one of four different versions of the story. Jordan was either a "father," a "stay-at-home father," a "mother," or a "stay-at-home mother." Then readers were quizzed on several aspects of the story. Did they have a different attitude towards Jordan depending on gender and "stay-at-home status? Over 1,200 people responded, and this graph shows the most dramatic results:
Guess what?
There was a relationship between gender and how we perceive work. I know you are shocked!
You can read more here via Cognitive Daily.
Thanks to Kirsten for the link.
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I think that there might be a typo:
"whether or not being described as a stay at home dad verse a stay at home dad, hurts ones credibility and reputation in their careers."
I suspect that it's supposed to read: "whether or not being described as a stay at home dad versus a stay at home mom", maybe?
Okay I hate to say it, but that graph means nothing to me? This guy is a "science blogger"? Did he bother to run stats on his little project? Where are the std errors on that graph, are they even statistically different? You have no way of knowing if the results were actually different, or just kind of look that way. Sorry, but I think it's kind of lame. If he bothered to survey that many people, why didn't he take a minute and run the stats?
I agree with Faerylore. Sure, the graph looks like there's a significant difference, and I would expect that there is a significant difference, but without the hard numbers, that graph is just a meaningless picture. Running the stats would have given the study loads more credibility in my eyes.
He could have just produced a series of boxplots instead of a bar graph-- that would have been more informative, without having to deal with standard error bars.
On the other hand, YEA STATISTICS!!!
"There's lies, damned lies, and then there's statistics." Mark Twain
I actually went to the post where he gave out the questionnaire. He told his readers it was a "reading comprehension" test. This is the story he gave them:
Jordan Smith is the coordinator of natural disaster relief efforts for ReliefCorps International. ReliefCorps is a new organization that uses web-based tools to coordinate agencies in more than a dozen countries worldwide. Whenever a disaster strikes, whether it's a hurricane, earthquake, or flood, Jordan scans the internet to see which agencies are best poised to help out.
During the recent tropical cyclone that hit Bangladesh, ReliefCorps worked with three different agencies who were able to supply food and water to over 10,000 people who had been stranded by the storm. After the worst of the storm was over, they worked to help families rebuild homes and reclaim flooded farmland.
Jordan does all this not by visiting the disaster sites in person, but from an office in the U.S. "We're here out of harm's way, where our equipment can't be damaged and we can keep all of our data on a central server." Because of robust data connections and satellite links, he can track operations at even the most remote locations. As a father of two, it's important for Jordan to be close to his family.
Over the next year, ReliefCorps hopes to form connections with agencies in 20 more countries. "The key is communications," Jordan says. "Once agencies are equipped with generators and satellite data links, we can make sure that supplies and people are in place when they are needed."
These are the questions:
How many agencies does ReliefCorps work with?
A.) 10
B.) 12
C.) 15
D.) 20
E.) The article doesn't say
How many people were helped by ReliefCorps in Bangladesh?
A.) 1,000
B.) 5,000
C.) 10,000
D.) 20,000
E.) 50,000
What is Jordan's job?
A.) Marketing director
B.) Operations coordinator
C.) President
D.) Communications manager
E.) Natural disaster relief coordinator
FAERYLORE: "Okay I hate to say it, but that graph means nothing to me? This guy is a "science blogger"? Did he bother to run stats on his little project? Where are the std errors on that graph, are they even statistically different?"""
Given the information you have about sample size and the means, I think you can make a number of reasonable conclusions.
A) The difference between perceptions of working fathers and SAHM would be statistically significant and meaningful. Even if you assume a huge standard deviation for those values (e.g., STD = 10), the difference would be stat sig and have a reasonable effect size. They look to be 6-7 hours apart.
B) The difference between the remaining three groups might be stat sig given the large sample, but a difference of only a couple hours (range 31-33) is probably meaningless anyways.
So, although I of course agree with you that STD/SE error bars would improve the presentation and make it easier to interpret the results, there is enough information for stat savvy folks to get the basic picture while keeping it simple enough for folks without that knowledge.
*Also, he does report on his site some of the stat sig differences.
How many hours would you guess Jordan works in a typical week?
A.) Less than 20
B.) 21-30
C.) 31-40
D.) 41-50
E.) 51-60
F.) 61-70
G.) over 70
How many people would you guess work for ReliefCorps International?
A.) 1-5
B.) 6-10
C.) 11-50
D.) 51-100
E.) 101-500
F.) over 500
What is your gender?
Female
Male
What is your age?
A.) Under 18
B.) 18-29
C.) 30-39
D.) 40-49
E.) 50-59
F.) 60 and older
Do you have kids?
Yes
No
For the post: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/12/casual_fridays_reading_compreh.php
For the survey: http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey
That may answer some questions. The story changes if you take it more than once. I got father of two up there, but the second time, it said "stay-at-home father father of two".
I see and agree with your point UCLA, but that's just the point. Everything but the two extremes could be the same, and the dude presents it as his "most dramatic results". And then the results are anything but dramatic. The whole thing looks shoddy to me, and it's seriously not hard to stick the std. error lines up on a graph. I mean, if you're going to make a graph, make a complete graph, you can't leave out the parts that don't fit with a "dramatic" presentation.
One more thing, here's a quote from the link:
"Fathers" were estimated to work a full six hours per week more than "stay-at-home mothers."
In the questionaire you posted (thanks!) the range in each option was 10 hours. So the difference btwn his most extreme groups was less than the range of each answer that you could choose from. Fishy.
I like this "study" less and less every time I look at it...
So I think I'll just stop now.
Le sigh.
Is his "sample size" the number of people who took the survey or the number of surveys done? Because you can take it more than once on the same computer.
FaeryLore "The whole thing looks shoddy to me....I like this "study" less and less every time I look at it..."
Oh, well, yeah, there is that :-). lol sorry sometimes I can get fixated on the little details :-).
Admittedly my evidence is mostly anecdotal, but it's my experience that people tend to think that SAH moms/wives are hard-working, while SAH dads/husbands are slackers using the "homemaking/working from home" label as an excuse to sit on the couch all day.
(I'm the breadwinner, and my husband works from home. How did you guess?)