Trinh Profile picture
Sep 19, 2020 30 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Why do we judge gender equality by certain jobs that we deem more useful to society than others (banking vs teaching or nursing vs being a mom? Women & men start out the same if not women ahead in men in college enrolment but then diverge as they choose diff majors & life choices
From my experience in universities & working, women choose what they like & not forced to focus on more “relationship oriented” education & career choices.

They tend to focus on the humanities & for those that actually enter professions that are more # based, leave b/c...
Only 9% of the nursing population is male & it is a female dominated profession by a ratio of 91%.

In teaching, women make up 76% of total.

Of course these are not economically rewarding jobs but they are socially very rewarding & noble.
Why do women choose these jobs? For various reasons but likely because of biological differences between men and women that dictate them to value relationships more (teaching allows you to have the same schedule as ur children & a very meaningful profession).

Whereas banking?
In banking, many graduates of banks start out with a relatively decent gender ratios. By this I mean not retail banking but investment banking. But the long hours & the grueling aspect of it require a certain type of people to persist. Some do. For for many women, they leave. Why
For one, they probably don't enjoy the material (monetary + status) aspect of it as much as men & care more about the relationship aspect, as in will I be able to spend time with my family & if I choose to have one I'd have to have children (pregnancy, post birth & raising kids).
Most women that I know that succeed in high-level jobs have supportive husbands that take up the other half of child rearing etc because someone has got to do it. If u are career driven, u marry someone who is complimentary.

Or they don't have kids or even a partner b/c well...
None of these choices are good or bad. But if I believe that a woman that wants it all (material things like money & status as well as relationship such as a husband & children & friends) would have to make wise choices so that she can have the support system to be female & hunt.
But we forget that not all women want to hunt & compete in a very aggressive environment & want to just select a mate that would do that for them & then focus on the one job that makes them indispensable: being a mother.

And we shouldn't judge them. That's what they want & like.
In most banks/organizations, u don't see female MDs/head b/c of many reasons but include:
*Women, even if good & success at their job, choose to leave to have jobs that allow them to be both a caregiver & also a career
*Women decide that they don't like reward/costs not worth it.
Career women face different choices than men: She has to decide whether she wants kids & if so must find a mate & have children & that takes time through the biological process.

Even w/ a support spouse (say stay at home husband), only women can give birth so she still needs to.
That means she faces the biological constraint even if she has the same set up as a man (a spouse that is supportive & will do the caregiving) because she has to carry the baby to term, make sure the baby survives before she can pass it off to her partner.

A man doesn't do that.
Companies are increasingly better at accommodating this biological fact as they want more women represented because, let's be honest, we think more holistically & are very good analysts of risks & rewards.

Offer maternity leave & even flexible work schedules. Things improving.
Women will be more represented in professions that were more difficult for women to have it all than before.

That said, a woman sees the world slightly different than a man because she has to make choices much earlier based on her understanding of herself & needs.

And...
Should she upon reflection of her skills, desire, ambition & tolerance of hunting choose to have a life where she wants to teach & have children & spend a lot of time with them, then we shouldn't expect her to be a man.

This is my problem w/ feminism. They want women to be men.
Look, at some point, our career will peak. My take is it is either in our 30s, 40s, or 50s. Perhaps some peak at 60s.

Either way, you are expected to retire and so when that happens whether u were a central banker or not wouldn't matter but your investment in your relationships
Do we judge a human based on monetary & status or the impact they have left behind to others?

Women live longer than men?

Women do because we value the things that matter & invest in them: relationships & communication.

We don't make poor choices, we're just not men.
Btw, women shouldn't try to be men. We are fine as we are. But if we want to have it all like we think that men do (a successful career w/ plenty of $, status, respect & power, a family (spouse, kids etc), then we need to be smart.

Have a partner that supports & wants the same!
Did you know that teaching used to be a male dominated profession? It was considered a stepping stone for a greater career in the law or the church until the 19th century.

The introduction of Common School (pre public school) required more workers beyond male & so women joined.
Here is an interesting fact regarding teaching, which is a female dominated profession:

76% of teachers are women & 54.2% of principals but only 24% of them are superintendents.

Why the gap even in a profession that is dominated by women?
People say women simply are not applying for the high-pressure but highly compensated job.

Unconscious bias on the part of those who make hiring decisions, a lack of a strong candidate pipeline, & a paucity of female role models & networking opportunities surface as reasons

So?
To become a superintendents, you must apply & women don't apply if they don't meet the qualification 100% while men would at 60%.

Got an issue of good candidates not applying. The 2nd issue is the road to become a superintendent is very, well, long & competitive & require focus.
Profile of a superintendent: like a graduate degree in education (MA or PhD), former principal (preferably at a middle or HS not elementary school) & assistant superintendent.

Then u have to apply for the job to get the job. Along the way, somehow, only 24% of women are there.
Stats on principals (prequisite to be a superintendent:

68% women in elementary school
40% women in middle school
33% women in HS.

The Gate Foundation funds an effort to raise this ratio & they focus primarily on getting women to apply for the job (many don't) & some progress.
The ratio of women applying for the superintendent job if they don't quality has risen. Here are some fun facts about women superintendents: they are more likely than men to have children in school. Diff b/n a teacher & a superintendent is salary + influence (individual v system)
Lower gender ratio of women in a field that we dominate highlights:

*Top jobs require singular focus on career (yrs of education to the graduate level + sticking around/focused to get the top job in ur profession)
*Women that make it have support system (spouse, mentor)& apply.
This article has a great video of 6 women that made it & what it takes to have the top job (a lot). The key pt they make here is having a mentor (someone to help guide & strategize career path) & focus, as is wanting & doing what it takes to be there.

usatoday.com/story/news/edu…
Btw, just because men make it to the top jobs doesn't mean that MOST MEN do.

By definition, a top job = extremely competitive & few. So most men don't make it.

The US has 44 male presidents so only 44 men made it to the top job. They don't represent the average man in the US.
If you only look at the gender ratios at the top & miss the gender ratio on average, then we are also skewing the discussion of gender equality.

What we mean is gender equality at the top & not true gender equality of outcome b/c an average man is likely worse off than women.
According to the WHO, "Women generally live longer than males – on average by 6-8 yrs. This difference is partly due to an inherent biological advantage for the female, but it reflects behavioural differences between men & women."

All of this is dependent on how u benchmark.

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More from @Trinhnomics

Sep 4
The best research on India is written by the @RBI and it's called the RBI Bulletin (very similar to BOE bulletin) & it's amazing. Go to the state of the economy for charts/details on what's going on in India & then they always have essays on specific issues.

Central banks are consistently the best place to get information on a particular country. I also like the RBA website as well. Enjoy!

We can read some of these together in case you find it intimidating reading central bank language.

rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Bulletin…
Some charts of interest from my reading.

India annual installed capacity of solar + wind + other renewables > coal, oil and gas since 2017. Image
India merchandise export contribution:

Positives = Electronic goods + engineering goods + pharma

Bad = petroleum, jewels/gems, rice & ceramics Image
Read 7 tweets
Sep 3
Germany is in structural decline & the path for that was waved by Angela Merkel who:
a) Allowed for mass irregular migration since 2015 that paved ways for Brexit, the far right rise in Germany and Europe
b) Appeasing Russia after its annexation of Crimea and expansion dependency on Russian gas
c) Phasing out nuclear energy.

As a result, Germany today deals with HIGHER input costs (energy is obvs) & also the political fallout of irregular migration.

Sholz of course is a worse politician than Angela Merkel but the path of its demise is paved by her.
The fact that China has pursued:
a) Expansion of coal, solar, wind, and nuclear to REDUCE INPUT COSTS
b) Subsidies in high-tech
c) Allowed for it to be competitive despite higher tariffs in Europe.

Meanwhile, Sholz asleep at the wheels. This is his reaciton: “Our country cannot and must not get used to this,” he went on. “The AfD is damaging Germany. It is weakening the economy, dividing society and ruining the country’s reputation.”
Germany doesn't understand that it cannot pursue its current path of extreme liberalism that worsens its competitiveness and destabilize its own society & expect to do well to lead Europe out of this mess.

Extreme liberalism can only exist in a vacuum or hypothesized world.

We exist in a world of limited resources. Countries like China are just better organized. Believe it or not. Sholz has no clue & will lose in 2025 but before he is gone he is still around to make a big mess.

Continuing to close the last 3 nuclear plants was a disaster.
Read 8 tweets
Aug 22
Statistics versus anecdotes. What do you believe? Well, if you study a Stat 101, the first thing they teach you is HOW the data is compiled & then you learn HOW to read it.

Fact: People feel that crimes are up because they know someone who is personally attacked or themselves;

Also fact: Crime stats show that crimes are down.

Can both be true? Yes, because crime stats can be manipulated by the source of crime but not including crime.

sfchronicle.com/crime/article/…
Are the Democrats the party of crime and punishment? Or are they the party of having low crime by REDEFINING what a crime is? Or even counting and prosecuting it?

The reality is that it is hard to know if the statistics are misleading because the beauty of statistics is to be impartial & to be able to aggregate and quantify your perceived reality, which is MICRO, and stats are supposed to help with MACRO & relative past/present/future.
Another example is of course the employment data that is just released by the BLS that revised downward jobs addition by almost a million jobs.

That's a lot. So you were right to think things were weaker than you thought. But you were also right to say that the labor market was strong, until they revise it downward for jobs that are interest rate sensitive.

Meaning, high real rates do impact the US.
Read 9 tweets
Aug 20
Pig Butchering Scam. Do you know what it is? I didn't until this Bloomberg Feature Story. USD75bn has been stolen from victims around the world & routed through crypto exchanges.

Before I go on about the story, I want to talk about this idea of Pig Butchering Scam. Basically, it works like this, usually via crypto.

You befriend a victim via social media & gain their trust & get them to invest in crypto & allow them to get "fat" or gain & finally "butcher" them by taking a larger sum and disappear.

bloomberg.com/features/2024-…
Scams are an industry. According to this Bloomberg story, there's an entire economic zone dedicated to it with an airport, casinos, resorts, basically soft & hard infrastructure.

A man called Zhao built it & gives the Laos government a 20% cut for a 99-year lease. He then leases out the infra to criminals that run online scams & also drug trafficking.

There's an entire supply chain w/ incentives, including the perpetrators, who are also victims of human trafficking.

bloomberg.com/features/2024-…
Criminals traffic scammers by offering them lucrative jobs but ended up having them being forced to work as scammers.

If they don't succeed in their targets, they get punished so high incentive to scam victims, who are usually in the US, China, etc.

There are an estimate 200,000 scammers in areas such as this who are themselves victims of human trafficking.
Read 8 tweets
Jul 24
India unveiled its FY25 budget yesterday (btw, they have another one in 6 months) & it was very much a fiscal consolidation, jobs, and responding to people's beef about the woeful labor market (Modi lost seats in Uttar Pradesh).

Before I talk about the Budget, let's talk about India labor supply & demand. Ready?Image
As you know, India is the most populous country in the world today & will be even more so in the future.

Let me put it a different way, by 2040, one out of 5 people will be Indian.

So what happens to India matters because it's a fifth of the world population by 2040. Image
India will have more people than China or the same as China and the US combined.

Yes, a lot of people. That's beautiful (generally referred as demographic dividend assuming that we have jobs for them) and highly problematic for India (high joblessness and civil unrest), Indian politics and also how to manage this massive supply of people (skilling them, finding jobs for them etc).Image
Read 31 tweets
Jun 18
As a follow up to that podcast, Bloomberg had a story that just came out that blew my mind. I knew it but they really dug deep.

This is a story about economics, resources, comparative advantage & the choices we make.

Nickel. What do you know about it?

bloomberg.com/features/2024-…Image
First, nickel is a material that has to be DUG out of the earth & process. Some easier (colder nickel in Russia) & some harder like wet & warm places like Indonesia where you have plenty of it but it's the processing that's difficult.

Here comes China.
The mining & processing of nickel are energy intensive. And more importantly, for Indonesian nickel, it was considered too low grade to do & China had breakthroughs in a technology called high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL). "Low-grade nickel ore is placed into pressure vessels, where it’s treated with sulfuric acid and heated. After that, the nickel that separates out will be suitable for batteries, once it’s refined"Image
Read 12 tweets

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