Public Poll: Parents versus non-parents

strobe wrote: »

The subject sample is far too small to draw any kinds of conclusions from about atheists in general.

It's not about atheists in general, but boards atheists

Dades wrote: »

Is this to finally confirm the long-held suspicion that atheists eat their young?

I like the way you're thinking, but I think the gender ratios are roughly the same (or within the error bars) as the gender breakdown poll, so I tentatively conclude that there's no evidence, prima facie, that atheists don't eat their young -- yummy and all as they no doubt are.

Ach, meant to get around to this last week. Humble apologies. Been busy. Mostly.

Just after the 'Women Atheist Activists' talk at the conference a few weeks back, some (female) friends were wondering about the relative silence of female atheists in Ireland and how many were posting on boards. I said we'd never done a poll here in A+A, but putting my highly inexpert finger in the air, I said that I thought it was probably between 10% and 20%. Turned out to be approximately 30% according to the first poll (stats here), which is above the average male:female ratio for boards forums (around 20% female postership, I believe).

Following on from that, one of my friends (thinking that there were a lower than expected number of female atheists posting here) wondered whether it was because women were busy with kids and simply lacked the time to post. I thought, but didn't suggest, that if it was so, then it didn't feel like that, and was possibly related instead to something which Tanya Smith mentioned in relation to job applications (the factoid that women would typically hold off applying for a job until they felt they met 90% of the criteria, while men would feel able to apply if they only met around 50%; something which she said had made her less enthusiastic about joining up with the atheist groups in Australie). And despite the forum's excellent posters, I'd have thought that A+A does set a fairly high bar conversation-wise. We talked about it for a few minutes more, but without resolving anything.

Anyhow, the figures which come out of this poll contradict the earlier poll somewhat, since the male:female ratio has reverted to 80:20, though on a smaller sample, so without running the numbers, it's possible that we're still within the error bars.

Regardless of that, the stats do show that the number of female parents (33%) is basically twice the ratio of female non-parents (15%).

I don't believe it's possible to draw much of a conclusion from this small data set, other than the simple observation that mums are twice as likely to post as non-mums, and half as likely to post as dads.

Any thoughts on this? Especially from any mums here?