The economists have an ancient law which they call "comparative advantage". Essentially it says a country should do whatever it does best at, even if its best is poor, poorer than other countries. If countries follow the rule, they'll end up trading goods at the lowest possible price. For example, American workers are good at assembling stuff, but they're also good at creating Disney films. Chinese workers are pretty fair at assembling stuff, but they aren't not good at creating Disney films. So the answer is obvious.
The NYTimes has an op-ed today which (mis)applies, without saying so, the theory to people. Barbara Oakey notes that academically girls are good at reading and writing, better than boys. But tests show that girls and boys have roughly equal aptitudes for math. She argues that girls, finding that they do better than boys at reading/writing will think they're less good at math and so choose to focus on reading/writing and slight their math. Her answer is to resist this, and to push girls to study math more.
Now Prof. Oakey is more focused on choices before college, not the ultimate choice of occupation. But drawing on the comparative advantage idea, she may be pushing a rock up the hill. She ignores the psychology on the other side: boys will find themselves outclassed at reading and writing by the girls, so will tend to focus on math.
[Caveats: all this is very general, phrased in ideal types, not real people.]
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