The Emitting Pipeline in Academia :Women in Economics
BY AADRIKA SHUKLA / JUNE 26, 2021
Why economics is an exception in the field of academia when it comes to gender inclusion: a string of obstacles and conceivable solutions.
he world has made colossal improvement by the means of inclusion in academia in the past few decades. With only about 30% of students studying economics being women (as of 2019), economics as a field is lagging. Although there is avid participation in a few areas pertaining to labour markets, healthcare and so on, involvement as a whole is lacking. The cleft is a historically structured one and has always been there, women comprising a minuscule part in academia. But, aforementioned fields such as engineering, statistics, political science and the life sciences have managed to positively engulf the gap through the years.
According to a survey conducted by the American Economic Association (AEA), it was found that the numbers for economics have not changed much since the late ‘90s and the percentage of women at each level of study, namely, graduation, doctorate or a full professorship, have remained more or less the same, with fewer than 15% women as full professors in the economics departments of notable institutions. It is pertinent to say that this proportion of women decreases as the academic rank increases. Many studies conducted in the early part of this century attribute this repulsion towards economics to the rigorous substance of mathematics present in the discipline, but this simply doesn’t hold as other fields such as statistics and physical sciences with extensive mathematics have seen immense participation and hence, improvement in the gap. Needless to say, a substantial cavity exists, what’s even worse is that it is recovering inchmeal. Diversity is greater than prescriptive fairness and this matter of inclusivity goes beyond what is visible on surface magnitude.
T
Diversity is greater than perspective fairness and this matter of inclusivity goes beyond what is visible on surface magnitude.
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Time and again people from all stages of life and work have noted that diversity and incorporation in academia, as well as other fields, is quintessential, not for the mere sake of it but a more rugged, relevant and high-powered point of view. Many studies suggest that the inventiveness and productivity of a mixed group of people only benefits research. This is even more critical in a social science such as economics, where our objective to understand human behaviour vastly affects public policy as from a pedagogical lens, men and women are quite dissimilar in their areas of interest, economic outcomes as well as the policies they form.
A 2014 survey by AEA catalogues their difference in opinion on issues such as labour standards, minimum wages, health insurance and matters around equal opportunities in the workplace. A lot of factors induce gaps in the gender demographics, some of them are explicable while the others are not, and women are seen branching out of the subject at each degree of competence. To quote Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard, “the largest relative mortality occurs at the very start of the process - as undergraduates.”
Credits: unknown; uploaded by Wuttke Anna via pinterest
In an array of studies conducted in the past two decades, a lot of aspects were brought to light that would explain the apparent disinterest in the subject. Various hypotheses name effects of math aptitude, prior exposure, performance in economics relative to other subjects and the instructor, as possible reasons for the gap. While there is a degree of accuracy in these explanations, the core concern here is that women have difficulty in understanding what economics is and that too from an early stage. The prior mentioned research shows that women don’t find the discipline ‘interesting enough’. A stockpile of corroboration suggests that this is because of the absence of a mirrored role model. A 2012 study shows that institutions where female instructors taught were the ones where more students stayed in the field after the undergraduate level. Students need to be constantly reminded that intelligence is not a rigid quality and that one’s ability in the subject can be evolved through assiduity and determination.
Even as we move up the academic ladder, issues revolving around a role model persist. Extensive documentation also tells us that female economists, initially in their careers, are not exposed to conferences and ‘informal’ social circles outside of their institutions as much as male economists. This networking is vital as it supports various research activities, in many academic establishments information about things such as publishing papers and obtaining tenure flows outside the official body, which can be otherwise missed.
Credits: Unknown via Pinterest
Findings from the annual Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi (ISI-D) conference ‘Annual Conference on Growth and Development’ show that women constitute about 29% of the authors of papers presented at the conference from 2004 to 2017, and numbers haven't risen since. A 2021 working paper on gender and the dynamics of economics seminar exhibits differential treatment towards women in these conferences: women receive 12% more questions than men, most of which are patronizing and hostile. Women are less likely to get their papers published too, some thesis allocates this to the fact that women have more concentrated domestic responsibilities. This is only correct to some degree because in the case of STEM fields, single childless men and women both have virtually the same amount of published documents, but the gap is significant when the two are compared in economics. All this bias is often labelled unconscious but is present in other dimensions such as in appointment of ‘non-promotable tasks’, where women are often chosen over men. Finally, the assessment procedure for tenure and promotion may be systematically prejudicial for women.
Finally, the assessment procedure for tenure and
promotion may be systematically prejudicial for women.
These circumstances can be ameliorated in many ways, starting with getting rid of unnecessary identifiers in tenure and paper applications and devoting to fair admissions or hiring criteria before learning applicants’ gender, collecting more evidence on candidate’s virtuosity and creating responsibility for everyone. Mary Rowe, an adjunct professor of negotiation at the MIT Sloan School of Management, suggests that ‘micro affirmations’ can be used in daily practice to create an upholding environment for women as well as other disadvantaged groups. These affirmations can be defined as small acts that occur, consciously or unconsciously, wherever people wish to help others to succeed.
At this point, an intriguing statistic to note is that the gap is better in India in comparison to figures from the west, in fact, women account for more than 50% of the students at master’s level. This measure drops at PhD level but has been surging with time. These numbers are way lower in the US where the percentage of women in masters and doctorate programs is a mere 35%. This contrast has not yet been explained through the means of research but makes the case of India distinctive.
Credits: The Tech Industry’s Gender-Discrimination Problem by Anna Parini via The New Yorker
Gender diversity in academia will establish a wider diameter of stances in the profession. This will pragmatically change everything from the beginning to the end of the discipline of economics, all the while creating a healthy environment for learning, research and development. Fresh ideas and perspectives have the power to encourage all but one, only creating headway for growth for the generations to come. As the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, rightfully asserts, “When women do better, economics does better.”
Keywords
Gender Demographics, Economic Ability, Diversity, Gender Gap, STEM field, Academia, Micro Affirmations, Feminism
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References
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Ginther, D. K., & Kahn, S. (2004). Women in Economics: Moving Up or Falling Off the Academic Career Ladder? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(3), 193–214. https://doi.org/10.1257/0895330042162386
Goldin, C. (2019). Why are there so few women economists? Chicago Booth Review. https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2019/article/why-are-there-so-few-women-economists
Dupas, P., Modestino, A. S., Niederle, M., & Wolfers, J. (2021). Gender and the dynamics of economics seminars. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1-71.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w28494
Das, U., Dongre, A., Singhal, K. (2021). ‘Missing’ women in economics academia in India. Ideas For India. https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/social-identity/missing-women-in-economics-academia-in-india.html
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