CSWEP: Past, Present, Future

Robin L. Bartlett - Denison University, CSWEP Chair

The stage was set at the Annual Business meeting of the American Economic Association (AEA) December 29, 1970 in Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan. A resolution was offered to have a session at the 1971 meetings on the role of women in economic life. And the rest is history. According to an interoffice memo (Chamberlain 1972) of the Ford Foundation from Mariam K. Chamberlain to Marshall A. Robinson, dated January 11, 1972, there were lively gatherings at the AEA annual meetings held December 27-29, 1971 in New Orleans. First Barbara Bergmann chaired the session titled "What Economic Equality for Women Requires." The overflow audience spilled into the corridors and was very sympathetic. Later that same day another gathering took place to form the Caucus of Women Economists and to draft a resolution to present at the AEA's business meeting for action.

Two Yale graduate students jointly chaired the meeting. Over 100 men and women - established and novice members of the profession alike - were present. The seven items spelled out in the original draft of the resolution began with: "Resolbed that the AEA endorses the principle that sex discrimination and inequality have no place in the Economics profession." The Caucus wanted discrimination against women in the profession to stop and for the AEA to facilitate that effort. Carolyn Shaw Bell, Catherine Coman Professor of Economics at Wellesley College, was elected chair of the Caucus and was designated to present a modified resolution to the Association's business meeting. Interestingly, this version of the resolution began with: "Resolved that the American Economic Assoction declares that economics is not a man's field." John Kenneth Galbraith chaired the business meeting. One of the first amendments to the resolution was to add "exclusively" to the first sentence (AER 1971). Six of the original items were passed almost intact. The creation of a roster of women economists was tabled for later action. Token opposition arose. The timely remarks of Robert Eisner and Andrew Brimmer, however, expediated the process.

Item II of that resolution gave birth to the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. President Galbraith (AER 1972) appointed Carolyn Saw Bell and eight other members: Walter Adams, Francine Blau, Martha Blaxall, Kenneth Boulding, Collette Moser, Barbara Reagan, Myra Strober, and Phyllis Wallace. Mariam Chamberlain then wrote a grant to the Ford Foundation which helped finance CSWEP through its formative years.

CSWEP has accomplished much over the past 25 years. There have been 10 chairs of CSWEP and 77 board members. Their names are listed at the end of this piece to give them the recognition they deserve. During its early years, CSWEP set out to document the problems of women in economics. Questionnaires were sent to all the Ph.D.-granting institutions in the US to systematically collect the first information on how many women were economists and where they were employed. This questionnaire eventually led to the annual survey distributed by the AEA known as the Universal Academic Questionnaire (UAQ). The UAQ provides information on the number of male and female assistant, associate and full professors at Ph.D.-granting institutions used in CSWEP's annual report as well as widely used salary information (also see Albelda, forthcoming).

To ensure that potential employers could identify availabel women economists, CSWEP established a roster. A roster provides employers with the list of over 7000 women economists and their areas of expertise. To ensure that everyone in the job market has all the available information about potential jobs, the AEA subsequently began the publication of Job Opportunities for Economists or JOE. Anti-nepotism rules, formal and informal, were dropped in many departments in order to enable both members of a couple to belong to a faculty (see AEA Resolution I, part f). Over the years CSWEP has published a newsletter three times a year which contains a variety of "how to" articles to help women pursue their professional goals.

CSWEP sponsors six sessions at the annual AEA meetings each year. Half of the sessions pertain to gender-related material and are intended to explore the economic position of women in and outside of the market. The other three sessions focus on specific topics or areas to showcase the young women who are entering these fields. Six to eight of these papers are selected to be published in the proceedings. Recently, to facilitate custodial parents attending its annual meetings, the AEA contracted with Kiddicorp to provide child care at the meetings. The AEA sessions, JOE, Kiddiecorp, and the employment of couples in the same department all grew from seeds planted in the founding resolution.

In 1993, CSWEP began collecting its own data not only to obtain an accurate count of women in academic jobs, but also to determine the number of women in the pipeline. While significant progress has been made with regard to the percentage of women in academia, a serious gender imbalance still exists at the upper ranks. Infomration gathered by CSWEP's 1996 annual departmental questionnaire shows that 29 percent of all undergraduates who earn a baccalaureate in economics in the Ph.D.-granting institutions are women. Thirty percent of those entering Ph.D. programs are women. Twenty-eight percent of the ABDs are women and 24 percent of the Ph.D.s earned in economics go to women. Only 20 percent of the jobs at Ph.D.-granting institutions , however, go to women. At non Ph.D.-granting institutions, 26 percent of the new hires are women. As Rebecca Blank Points out, the number of women hired in tenure track positions at the country's Ph.D.-granting institutions has improved noticeably, but the number who received tenure is still not on par with that of men.

While previous efforts of CSWEP have been helpful, it will take many more years before the serious imbalance between the status of men and women in economics is rectified. The 25th anniversary of CSWEP provides the opportunity to evaluate its success with respect to the original items in the founding resolution. In its new mission statement, CSWEP members have reaffirmed their belief that economics is a woman's field as much as it is a man's field; their commitment to represent women's views within the Association; and their determination to help women succeed in the profession. To these ends, CSWEP is in the process of taking several new initiatives. First, since publishing and grant-writing are keys to the success of young faculty members, CSWEP wrote a grant to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to hold a series of workshops that will bring junior and senior women together in teams to catapult more women into the tenured ranks and above. The CSWEP board and several senior women in the profession are trying a new approach to facilitating the progress of younger women through the ranks. Fourty junior women and eight senior women are scheduled to meet for the first time after the AEA meetings to work in teams to cooperatively help each other with publishing, grant-writing, networking, and balancing life choices. Working together on each other's projects will speed up the process of feedback and review. At the regional meetings, CSWEP board members will also cafilitate similar workshops. We hope to reach over 160 female economists in the course of the coming year.

Second, CSWEP's regional representatives are making connections with women in their areas and with regional associations. CSWEP is making a concerted effort to reach out to women who are not at the large research institutions. The newsletter has more articles on teaching and research institutions other than those granting Ph.D.s. The newsletter will also begin a new section where responses from readers will be published. Finally, as Carolyn Shaw Bell suggested, women economists need to boast more about their achievements. CSWEP is currently exploring the establishment of a prize in economics that would celebrate the work of a woman economist.

Women economists have a britical role to play in the development of the profession and the discipline of economics. CSWEP hopes tha the next 25 years will see the abolition of the gross gender imbalance that Kenneth Boulding wrote 25 years ago.

Twenty-five years of CSWEP Board Members from 1972 through 1997 *******************************************************************************