Rebecca M. Blank, Northwestern University, CSWEP Chair, 1994-96

The progress of women in the academic world of economics can best be characterized as a good news/bad news story. The good news is that women economists have made substantial gains in numbers and status in academic departments. The bad news is that there is still evidence that women face greater barriers in this world than their male colleagues.

The good news is clear from the data. The National Science Foundation indicates that the share of new Ph.D.s in economics awarded to women has increased from 10 percent in 1974 to 25 percent in 1995. The American Economic Association's (AEA) annual survey of Ph.D.-granting departments indicates that the share of untenured but tenure-track assistant professors who are female has risen from 7 percent to 25 percent over these years. The share of full tenured professors who are women has risen much more slowly, from 2 percent to 5 percent. CSWEP's own (and more complete) survey of Ph.D.-granting departments indicates that over 8 percent of full tenured professors are women. Further, there is evidence that a growing share of published papers are authored or co-authored by women and that women's participation in annual meetings of the AEA has risen.

While these gains should be celebrated, there are still ongoing problems faced by women in academic economics. Most notably, women are still very scarce on most economics faculties. A number of departments continue to have no tenured women. In 1996-97, the CSWEP survey indicates that there were only 108 tenured women in 98 Ph.D.-granting departments. With an average department size of 25, these departments averaged 3 women at all ranks. For many purposes the gender of one's colleagues may be irrelevant. But most women who have been among only one or two in their department will testify that they regularly experience a sense of isolation, even if this is just the lack of someone who will laugh at some of the same jokes. It has also been suggested that the lack of women on economics faculties is one reason fewer young women are attracted to the field. However, recent research (Canes and Rosen, 1995, or Neumark and Gardecki, 1996) suggests the effects on students of having a role model of the same gender may not be large.

In addition, there is evidence that women disproportionately drop out of tenure track positions. Several years ago I tried to simulate a model of expected progression through the ranks for men and women in economics, starting with the men and women in the profession in 1980. Whichever set of assumptions I adopted about how to simulate "equivalent" progress for women and men, I came up with the same answer: women were advancing more slowly than any simulation would suggest they should be. In short, the sparsity of women at the full tenured level is due both to the fact that women start as a smaller pool of Ph.D. students and to the fact that they leave, or fail to be promoted, at a higher rate than men. Kahn (1993), for instance, finds that the median time to tenure among women is 3 years longer than among men.

Women are now spread more evenly across disciplinary topics than they used to be, although they remain over-represented in the empirical subfields and under-represented in the more theoretical subfields. The academic jobs in which women are located also remain skewed. There are relatively more women in teaching colleges and in jobs at lower-ranked universities. Barbezat (1992) discusses differences in the placement of men and women in the economics job market. Singell and Stone (1993) and McMillen and Singell (1994) investigate the determinants of first job placement and subsequent promotion between men and women in economics, finding evidence consistent with the theory that women are "underplaced" in academic jobs.

Perhaps the largest change is simply the widespread acceptance of women in economics. Women present at the formation of CSWEP in the early 1970s tell numerous stories of being belittled and not taken seriously by their male colleagues. (For instance, see the conversation with Carolyn Shaw Bell about the founding of CSWEP in the Fall 1993 CSWEP Newsletter.) Current cases of egregious sexual discrimination and exclusion in the profession are few (although not entirely absent.) Instead, the problems that many women currently face are more subtle: Not being as often included in conversations or invited to be part of research projects simply because they aren't "one of the guys"; sitting in faculty meetings as the only woman and realizing their colleagues just don't understand their point of view; or facing institutional issues (the lack of university maternity leave policies, for example) that deeply affect them but don't effect their male colleagues. The good news is that these problems can be dealt with more easily than the outright hostility that women faced 30 years ago in academics; the bad news is that these problems still exist.

A major institutional issue that continues to affect women in academic positions more than their male colleagues is the problem of career timing. Launching a career as an academic economist means extended schooling, followed by a minimum of 6 hard-working years until a tenure decision. The years when a younger faculty member is expected to demonstrate high research productivity and strong service to the university are exactly when many women are also in their prime childbearing years. As recent participants in a CSWEP panel on marriage and children (at the 1996 AEA meetings) indicated, life just isn't fair for women with children inside the university. Although many husbands do increasing amounts of childcare, most women put significantly more time into childcare responsibilities than their husbands. The typical pattern of older generations of academic women was to have children -- if one had children at all -- after tenure. One of the changes in the profession is that a growing number of women at well-regarded research schools are having children as junior faculty members. It is still an open question how they will fare in the long run as they try to combine career and family.

Organizations like CSWEP have helped advance women's progress in academics. CSWEP has provided opportunities for (particularly younger) women to get on the program at AEA annual meetings and to be published in the AER's Papers and Proceedings. CSWEP has also been a consistent voice within the AEA for issues of particular concern to women, such as child care at the annual meetings. The networking that occurs through CSWEP receptions and through the Newsletter is also important. As one woman once said to me, "I go to the CSWEP reception at the AEA annual meetings each year just because it's such a lift to walk into a roomful of economists and see that they're all women." Buttressing the work of CSWEP, the formation of the International Association of Feminist Economists (IAFFE) in recent years has created additional avenues through which women can make connections. IAFFE has been particularly active in promoting the application of feminist theory to the field of economics, creating a new subfield of the discipline.

The question of "Why aren't there more women in academic economics?" remains key for the profession. Of particular concern is the continuing low share of undergraduate economics majors who are female. Less than 30 percent of graduating seniors in economics were women in the mid-1990s. While all of us can work to make our departments and universities better places for women faculty to work, until we also improve the pipeline and increase the number of younger women with an interest in the field, the number of women entering academic research and teaching careers in economics will remain low.

References:

Barbezat, Debra A. 1992. "The Market for New Ph.D. Economists." Journal of Economic Education. Vol 23:2, p262-76.

Canes, Brandice J. and Harvey S. Rosen. 1995. "Following in Her Footsteps? Women's Choices of College Majors and Faculty Gender Composition." Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol 48:3, p486-504.

Kahn, Shulamit. 1993. "Gender Differences in Academic Career Paths of Economists," American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings. Vol 83:2, p52-6.

McMillen, Daniel P. and Larry D. Singell, Jr. 1994. "Gender Differences in First Jobs for Economists." Southern Economic Journal. Vol 60:3, p701-14.

Neumark, David and Rosella Gardecki. 1996. "Women Helping Women? Role-Model and Mentoring Effects on Female Ph.D. Students in Economics." NBER Working Paper 5733. Cambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Singell, Jr., Larry D. and Joe A. Stone. 1993. "Gender Differences in the Careers of Ph.D. Economists." Contemporary Policy Issues. Vol 11:4, p95-106.