Responsible team players wanted: an analysis of soft skill requirements in job advertisements

EPJ Data Science

Table 5 OLS regression results predicting the proportion of women using soft skill clusters as predictors

	Gender stereotype (Bem [18])	Mapped skill cluster	r (%)	\({P}_{f}\) (%)	\({P}_{m}\) (%)	\(\frac{{P}_{f} - {P}_{m}}{\max({P}_{f}, {P}_{m})} \times100\%\)
Feminine	Compassionate	empathy	−1.3	0.94	0.12	87.1
	Does not use harsh language	polite	−5.9^∗∗	0.25	0.22	13.1
	Loves children	ability to work with children	0.3	2.13	0.07	96.8
	Sensitive to the needs of others	sensitivity	3.0	0.22	0.10	52.5
	Warm	friendly personality	−4.6	0.11	0.07	38.4
	Average		−1.7	0.73	0.12	57.6
Masculine	Ambitious	ambitious	1.4	3.11	5.17	−39.9
	Analytical	analytical skills	2.9^∗∗	0.59	3.16	−81.3
	Assertive	confident	0.5	6.39	6.09	4.7
	Has leadership abilities	leadership	7.4^∗∗	9.85	5.94	39.7
	Independent	capability to work independently	1.9	1.17	1.11	5.4
	Makes decisions easily	make decisions	3.0^∗∗	1.25	1.08	13.1
	Self-sufficient	autonomy	1.3	0.99	1.23	−19.4
	Average		2.6^∗∗	3.34	3.40	−11.1

^∗∗p<0.01, ^∗p<0.05.
The gender stereotypes listed by Bem [18] that could be mapped to one of our soft skill clusters. On average, the feminine stereotypes are associated with a wage penalty (r = −1.7), whereas the masculine stereotypes are associated with a premium (r = 2.6). The percentage of job ads within female and male-dominated industries that mention a skill cluster are denoted by \(P_{f}\) and \(P_{m}\), respectively.