Ce mémoire regroupe différentes études sur la préférence pour les garçons au Pakistan. Celles-ci analysent la fréquence et l'étendue de la préférence pour les garçons et son effet sur la grossesse des femmes. Le rôle que la préférence pour les garçons joue sur la participation des femmes au niveau des décisions au sein du ménage est examiné, tout comme son effet sur l'espacement des naissances, la probabilité d'une naissance à risque, ou l'impact de l'âge auquel une femme se marie sur l'équilibre entre les sexes et le développement de l'enfant né. Nous trouvons qu'il existe une préférence réelle et déclarée pour la progéniture masculine au Pakistan. La probabilité de poursuivre les grossesses diminue avec le nombre de garçons nés. De plus, les femmes qui ont au moins un garcon ont plus d'influence sur les décisions quotidiennes du ménage mais pas sur les décisions financières. La participation des femmes sur les décisions à prendre au sein du ménage augmente avec le nombre de garçons mais seulement jusqu'à la troisième naissance. D'ailleurs, les femmes ayant au moins un garçon attendent plus longtemps avant d'avoir d'autres enfants. Ce constat est plus particulièrement vrai dans le cadre d'une première naissance et il est moins présent à partir de la deuxième naissance. En outre, le fait de se marier à 18 ans ou plus tard influence de façon positive la préférence des femmes sur la composition de sa famille. Pourtant, peu importe qu’une femme se marie avant ou après 18 ans, cela ne modifie pas le biais en faveur des garçons dans leur investissement parental. A partir de ces résultats, nous proposons des préconisations politiques afin de lutter contre les inégalités entre les sexes au Pakistan. / This thesis is a collection of studies on son preference in Pakistan. The studies analyze the prevalence and strength of son preference and its effects on women’s childbearing. The role son preference plays in determining women's participation in intra-household decisionmaking is examined as are its effect on birth spacing, probability of risky births and role of maternal age at marriage in modifying gender-specific reproduction and development outcomes. We find strong evidence for both the revealed and stated preference for male offspring. The probability of continuing childbearing also decreases with the number of sons born. Furthermore, we find that women with at least one son have more say in ‘routine’ household decisions but not in financial decisions. Female participation in decision-making grows significantly with the number of sons but only up to the third parity. We find that women with at least one son are more likely to delay succeeding births. We obtain strong evidence at parity 1. The impact seems to dissipate beyond the second parity. Moreover, we find that marriage at 18 or later positively influence women’s preference for family’s sex composition. However, whether or not a woman married early or late does little to modify the male gender bias prevalent in parental investment. In light of these findings, we suggest policy measures that could help improve gender equity in the country.

The inclusion of a gender perspective in medicine has shown that gender is an essential factor in health and disease, in medical encounters and also in medical students’ educational environment. The aim of this study was to explore attitudes, preconceptions and norms regarding gender within medical education and processes of gender bias. First, we explored medical students gendered beliefs about patients. Second, we examined the medical students ideas about their future careers. Third, we compared awareness on gender issues among medical students in Sweden and the Netherlands. Method and material The analyses were based on data from two different sources: one experimental study based on authentic patient narratives about being diagnosed with cancer and one extensive questionaire exploring different aspects of gender issues in medical education. Both studies had a design which enabled both qualitative and quantitative research and mixed methods was used. Study I (Paper I and II): Eighty-one anonymous letters from patients were read by 130 students of medicine and psychology. For each letter the students were asked to state the patient’s sex and explain their choice. In paper I the students’ success rates were analysed statistically and the explanations to four letters were used to illustrate the students’ reasoning. Paper II examined the 87 medical students’ explanations closer to examine gender beliefs about patients. Study II (Paper III and IV): The questionaire started with an open question where medical students were asked to describe their ideal future, it also included a validated scale designed to estimate gender awareness. Paper III examined 507 swedish medical students descriptions about their ideal future and compared answers from male and female students in the beginning and at the end of medical school. Paper IV compared gender awareness among 1096 Swedish and Dutch medical students in first term. Findings with reflections Paper I showed that the patient’s sex was correctly identified in 62% of the cases. There were no difference between the results of male and female students. However, large differences between letters were observed, i.e. there were some letters were almost all students correctly identified the patient´s sex, others were almost all students were incorrect and most letters were found somewhere in the middle. Another significant finding was that the same expressions were interpreted differently depending on which initial guess the medical student had made regarding the sex of the patient. Paper II identified 21 categories of justifications within the students’ explanations, twelve of which were significantly associated with an assumption of either a male or female patient. Only three categories led to more correct identifications of the patients’ sex and two were more often associated with incorrect assignments. The results illustrate how beliefs about gender difference, even though they might be recognizable on a group level, are not applicable on individuals. Furthermore, the results show that medical students enter the education with beliefs about male and female patients, which could have consequenses and cause bias in their future work as doctors. Paper III found that almost all students, both male and female, were work-oriented. However, the female students even more so than their male counterparts. This result is particularly interesting in regards to the debate about the “feminization of medicine” in which the increasing number of female students has been adressed as a problem. When reflecting on their own lifes and their future its obvious that medical students nowadays, male and female, expect more to life than work, especially those who are on the doorstep to their professional life. Paper IV found that the national and cultural setting was the most crucial impact factor in relation to the medical students preconceptions and awareness about gender. The Swedish students expressed less stereotypic thinking about patients and doctors, while the Dutch students were more sensitive to gender difference. In both countries, the students’ sex mattered for gender stereotyping, with male students agreeing more to stereotypes. Conclusions A gender perspective is important in medical education. Our studies show that such initiatives needs to take cultural aspects, gender attitudes and students’ gender into account. Moreover, reflections on assumptions about men and women, patients as well as doctors, need to be included in medical curricula and the impact of implicit gender beliefs needs to be included in discussions on gender bias in health care. Also, the next generation of doctors want more to life than work. Future Swedish doctors, both female and male, intend to balance work not only with a family but also with leisure. This attitudinal change towards their future work as doctors will provide the health care system with a challenge to establish more adaptive and flexible work conditions.

Slovak Republic is a country where women are still underrepresented in the public life. Only recently, after the Parliamentary elections in June 2010, a woman became Prime Minister of Slovak Republic. Slovak and international media appreciated Slovakia for being a first country in central-eastern Europe to have a female leader of the country (Zsilleova 2010). This fact doesn`t change, that women are almost absent from high posts in Parliament, Government, public life, media or high managerial posts. Women in Slovakia still have a long way to the equality. This study focuses on the way female candidate for President Iveta Radičová is represented in the media during 2009 campaign. The research compares her coverage with male candidate`s coverage. The coverage of personal traits of candidates was gender biased and media mentioned female candidate`s gender very often, meanwhile they didn`t mention male candidates gender except in few occasions. However, there was no gender bias in the coverage of candidates` viability, the issues discussed, and the tone of coverage. Even thought male candidate was favored in amount and prominence of coverage, he was covered in more negative way, which can turn his advantage into disadvantage.

AI spås få lika stor påverkan på samhället som elektricitet haft och avancemangen inom till exempel maskininlärning och neurala nätverk har tagit AI in i sektorer som rättsväsende, rekrytering och hälso- och sjukvård. Men AI-system är, precis som människor, känsliga för olika typer av snedvridningar, vilket kan leda till orättvisa beslut. En alarmerande mängd studier och rapporter visar att AI i flera fall speglar, sprider och förstärker befintliga snedvridningar i samhället i form av fördomar och värderingar vad gäller könsstereotyper och könsdiskriminering. Algoritmer som används i bildigenkänning baserar sina beslut på stereotyper om vad som är manligt och kvinnligt, röstigenkänning är mer trolig att korrekt känna igen manliga röster jämfört med kvinnliga röster och röstassistenter som Microsoft:s Cortona eller Apple:s Siri förstärker befintlig könsdiskriminering i samhällen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur könsdiskriminering kan uppstå i AI-system generellt, hur relationen mellan gender bias och AI-system ser ut samt hur ett företag som arbetar med utveckling av AI resonerar kring relationen mellan gender bias och AI-utveckling. Studiens syfte uppfylls genom en litteraturgenomgång samt djupintervjuer med nyckelpersoner som på olika sätt arbetar med AI-utveckling på KPMG. Resultaten visar att bias i allmänhet och gender bias i synnerhet finns närvarande i alla steg i utvecklingen av AI och kan uppstå på grund av en mängd olika faktorer, inklusive men inte begränsat till mångfald i utvecklingsteamen, utformningen av algoritmer och beslut relaterade till hur data samlas in, kodas, eller används för att träna algoritmer. De lösningar som föreslås handlar dels om att adressera respektive orsaksfaktor som identifierats, men även att se problemet med gender bias och könsdiskriminering i AI-system från ett helhetsperspektiv. Essensen av resultaten är att det inte räcker att ändra någon av parametrarna om inte systemets struktur samtidigt ändras. / Recent advances in, for example, machine learning and neural networks have taken artificial intelligence into disciplines such as justice, recruitment and health care. As in all fields subject to AI, correct decisions are crucial and there is no room for discriminatory conclusions. However, AI-systems are, just like humans, subject to various types of distortions, which can lead to unfair decisions. An alarming number of studies and reports show that AI in many cases reflects and reinforces existing gender bias in society. Algorithms used in image recognition base their decisions on character stereotypes of male and female. Voice recognition is more likely to correctly recognize male voices compared to female voices, and earlier 2019 the United Nations released a study showing that voice assistants, such as Microsoft's Cortona or Apple's Siri, reinforce existing gender bias. The purpose of this study is to investigate how gender discrimination can appear in AI-systems, and what constitutes the relationship between gender bias, gender discrimination and AI-systems. Furthermore it addresses how a company that works with the development of AI reason concerning the relationship between gender bias, gender discrimination and AI development. The study contains a thorough literature review, as well as in-depth interviews with key persons working with various aspects of AI development at KPMG.  The results show that bias in general, and gender bias in particular, are present at all stages of AI development. It can occur due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to the lack of diversity in the workforce, the design of algorithms and the decisions related to how data is collected, encoded and used to train algorithms. The solutions proposed are partly about addressing the identified factors, but also about looking at the problem from a holistic perspective. The significance of seeing and understanding the links between gender bias in society and gender bias in AI-systems, as well as reconsidering how each factor depends on and correlates with other ones, is emphasized. The essence of the results is that it is not enough to alter any of the parameters unless the structure of the system is changed as well.

The purpose of this study is to present how female entrepreneurs in Sweden raise capital for their start-ups and if there are common key factors presented among those who succeed. The entrepreneurs interviewed have all successfully raised capital. The research shows that female founders only have access to 1% or less of the capital in Sweden. We interview investors to acquire their perception of gender bias in fundraising and the key factors they look for during their due diligence process. The study shows that female entrepreneurs prefer bootstrapping and soft fundings before approaching investors. The majority of the female entrepreneurs were unsecure or did not know if they have been exposed to gender bias from investors during their fundraising process because they succeeded raising capital. They were at the same time aware of the existing gender bias. The majority of the investors expressed that they preferred to invest in female or mixed funded companies because their experience shows that those tend to perform better. The study also shows that key factors during the fundraising process are diversity of the team, resilience, networking, building good relations and that the entrepreneurs appears to be coachable from the investors point of view.

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Women today continue to struggle against male-dominated values and norms, and male prejudices, both in society and the Church. This balance of power needs to be altered to free women from the domination of men. The strategies proposed in this dissertation are based on the Christian ethic of justice and equality. Their implementation, I argue, would empower women to resist oppression, independently of men, to achieve liberation and equality so that male-dominated ideologies and structures could no longer oppress. A case study of women ministers in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa revealed discrimination against, and the limitation of the ministries of women clergy. The ethical dilemma of the Church appearing to follow, rather than to lead society on such issues was noted. The attainment of the liberation of women is dependent solely upon themselves and the extent to which they are prepared to take responsibility for their own lives. / M.Th. (Theological Ethics)

School counselors need to advocate and act as an ally for all students. Safe Space, a training designed to facilitate competency for working with and serving LGBTQ youth (i.e., LGBTQ competency), has received increased attention in the field of school counseling. However, limited empirical support exists for training interventions such as Safe Space, with only one study to date examining its effectiveness for graduate psychology students (see Finkel, Storaasli, Bandele, & Schaefer, 2003). This study used a randomized pretest-posttest control group design to evaluate and examine the impact of Safe Space training on competency levels of a sample of school counselors/school counselor trainees and to explore the relationship between LGBTQ competency and awareness of sexism and heterosexism.

La presente tesi raggruppa tre contributi che analizzano la partecipazione dei minori ad attività lavorative e scolastiche in Marocco, le variabili correlate con il benessere individuale e le differenze nei livelli salariali in Albania. I tre saggi tentano di fornire analisi empiriche basate sulla letteratura più recente e di contribuire allo sviluppo della metodologia quantitativa più comunemente utilizzata. / The present thesis is a collection of three contributions which investigate children’s schooling and labour participation in Morocco, the correlates of subjective well being and the differences in wage levels in Albania. The papers try to carry out empirical analyses of these issues based on the most recent developments in the relevant literature and to contribute to the empirical methodology commonly used.