Evaluation of Implicit and Explicit Gender Beliefs on Occupation Domain Titles of a Nurse and a Doctor. The Stereotypes of Male and Female Jobs

The goal of this research is to measure and compare the implicit and explicit gender beliefs in occupation domain titles of a nurse and a doctor. Even though the stereotypes of masculine and feminine jobs still occur in diverse occupation domains, the focus of this study was purely on the health care domains. The online survey was designed on Qualtrics to measure both the implicit and explicit gender beliefs. In order to measure the implicit beliefs, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was generated and applied. IAT estimates the stereotypes and beliefs of people which may not be able or not be willing to declare. The explicit beliefs were measured by using a Likert-type rating scale and the proportion rate of the doctors and nurses as males or females worldwide. The results which were observed from IAT were later compared to the explicit beliefs. The IAT results have shown that there are indeed stereotypical implicit gender differences in nurse and doctor occupations. In the meanwhile, the results regarding the explicit beliefs measured with the Likert scale suggested that explicitly individuals tend to attach the feminine character traits to a nurse occupation and the masculine attributes to a doctor occupation. Furthermore, the proportion rate imposed that there is an explicitly formed gender gap in the spread of nurses and doctors as females and males. The aim of this research was not to only find out if gender bias exists in occupation domains such as a doctor and nurse, but also to provide clear recommendations and conclusions towards this subject to add value for further research.