Testosterone May Guide Women's Careers

Aug. 25, 2009— -- Women often look back on mentors, family members or teachers as influences in their career decisions. But a new study found something as simple as testosterone levels may be nudging women into one career path over another.

A new study of 500 graduate business students showed that women with higher testosterone levels take more risks and are more likely to choose a finance career than women with low testosterone levels.

But testosterone levels made no difference in men's career choices in the study.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University tested testosterone's effect on career choice among MBA students, in part to shed light on an ongoing debate about whether social or biological influences lead more men into high-risk careers in finance.

"While it is true that the social environment can influence career decisions a lot, it is true, genetically, that women have lower testosterone than men, on average," said Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a lead author of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Citing his results, Zingales said "there is no way to say this is nature, or this is nurture." But, he said, the study helps to shed some light on how much, and when, biology plays a part in business career choices.

To test testosterone's influence, the researchers recruited 500 master's students at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business to participate in a series experiments.

The men and women volunteers gave saliva samples to measure testosterone levels. (Women typically have lower testosterone levels in their saliva than men, but not always.) The volunteers then played a risk-taking game that is often used to predict how much risk a person would take while investing in the stock market.

After graduation, the researchers compared the results of the saliva test, the students' career choices, and a few other measurements that loosely mark how much testosterone the person was exposed to as a fetus, including the ratio of the index-finger length to the ring-finger length.

Eventually, 36 percent of female students chose high-risk financial careers, compared to 57 percent of male students.