The debate over whether men or women are smarter may never be resolved, but this week a professor's gathered statistics shed some light on the subject.
Professor Lewis Mandell from the School of Management posed questions to the UB community Monday in Jacobs Hall, offering stats relating to financial literacy and gender in exchange for new inquiries. The speech was a part of the Gender Week agenda.
After opening the discussion with the disclaimer: "I'm not a gender expert, I'm an economist," Mandell said that he wanted to present his data and ask what it meant.
Mandell is known in the financial community as the creator of the JumpStart Coalition for Financial Literacy, a survey that collects data every two years from high school seniors.
Mandell shared the results, indicating that the young adults of America are not, for the most part, very knowledgeable in finances.
"Young adults, high school seniors, are ignorant to things they are going to need to know to survive," Mandell said
After explaining the program, Mandell went on to show how the results related to gender, something that junior anthropology major, Anna Ronka, came to learn more about.
"I wanted to learn new things," Ronka said. "(The discussion) is more information about a subject that interests me."
Survey results show, according to Mandell, that no gender differences in financial literacy exist.
The survey's results did show that women seem to have an advantage in improving job skills, but show the greatest need for life insurance. Men seem to do better with categories such as advantages of investing stock.
"We know what we should do, but what we actually do is more determined by our emotions," Mandell said.
He suggested that society might be a reason to blame for these differences.
"Maybe dads talk more to their sons about stocks, as part of traditional acculturation," he said.
In addition to the test results, Mandell focused on difference that seems to be increasingly prevalent - a gender gap in higher education.
"The new data that I've collected is shedding light on the gender gap that's occurring in higher education," Mandell said. "Almost 60 percent of those enrolled in college in America are female. It seems like guys just stopped going to college."
It was the ever-growing gender gap in today's society and Mandell's reputation that drew Dr. Leslie McCain, educational technology specialist at the College of Arts and Sciences, to the Professor's speech.
"This gap continues financially as well in middle-aged women around me outside the education system," McCain said. "Part of my hope is that by overcoming the gender gap in math and science, that will help empower people to tackle the gaps in personal finances."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
