In recent years, American and Western European policymakers and business leaders have been forced to confront stark gender imbalances within prestigious and well-paid fields, including medicine, science, and engineering. Although some wish to lay the blame on intrinsic neurobiological differences between the sexes, a glance toward the East deflates this argument. In 2015, an OECD report on health found that six of the top 10 countries with the highest percentage of female doctors are in Eastern Europe. An astounding three-fourths of all doctors in Estonia are women, compared to only one-third of the doctors in the United States. A 2015 UNESCO report determined that Eastern European countries have far more women working in the fields of research and development than in Western Europe. Of the top 10 European nations with the highest percentage of women working in the “high-tech sector,” eight of them are in the East.

The reason behind...

You do not currently have access to this content.