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• Thread: 3882 Goods vs 1538 No Goods

1. Economist
   5363
   

   I strongly believe that women are under-represented and that they are subject to a number of implicit biases that men do not receive, on average.

   Please provide credible evidence for this claim, and explain why it doesnt apply in fields which have 50:50 gender representation like law, biology, etc.
   "People vs things" gender preferences explains essentially every single piece of data that we have about female career choices and representation. There is no evidence that 'implicit biases' play any role.

   There are two claims here. They’re independent. A careful reader would note there was no suggestion here that increasing female representation in economics would do anything to fix discrimination against women, and vice versa. I brought this up to contrast with my belief that preferential hiring practices are harmful to the field.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 3 Good 0 No Good !

2. Economist
   5363
   

   Your mention of “implicit biases “

   Maybe they do not like economics as much as men do. Just as it happens that men don’t like to be a nurse as much as women do. Isn’t that possible ???

   I strongly believe that women are under-represented and that they are subject to a number of implicit biases that men do not receive, on average. I also believe that preferential hiring practices are harmful and do almost nothing to address this issue. These policies are just a way for individual schools to cover their asses for deans. The right approach is to focus on why women are not interested in Econ grad school. I really doubt that undergrads have internalized econ seminar culture or the host of implicit biases that women face in our profession and I think it’s sort of crazy to claim women are under-represented for those reasons. The problem has already clearly manifested by the time students decide to apply to graduate school. Our field’s culture may turn off more women than men when they are in grad school, sure, and that may be a bad thing worth fixing. But it is not a first order cause of the gender disparity in Econ. That clearly, indisputably emerges before graduate school even begins.
   

   Of course it is. What in this post made you think otherwise?
   

   Refer to post above.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

3. Economist
   5363
   

   I also mentioned something along the lines of “the right approach is to find out why women are not interested in economics grad school” twice in that paragraph, which is exactly what you’re challenging me to acknowledge and was in fact the main message of my post, so your reading comprehension must be really bad . . .

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

4. Economist
   8725
   

   ^ the right approach to do what ?

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

5. Economist
   5363
   

   ^ the right approach to do what ?

   If you accept that the share of women in our profession is low relative to some social optimum - which I understand you don’t, stay with me for a second - then my point is that the gender gap emerges when people decide to go to grad school, not during or after, and so preferential hiring would only affect female representation by potentially inducing people marginal between academia and private sector things to stay in academia. I claim that effect is very small and so preferential hiring is basically shifting females from some schools to better schools. This is my key point. Everything else you are taking issue with is irrelevant. I am not here to convince you that women face implicit biases in the workplace or that the share of women in our profession is suboptimal. I am saying that there are people who believe especially in the latter (including me) but publicly believe the best way to address that objective is by making seminar culture nicer or by affirmative action on the job market. Those policy tools are clearly inappropriate because the gender representation gap emerges earlier.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !

6. Economist
   bad2
   

   Got it - thanks. But yes I disagree that one can define a social optimum based on gender percentages in a given profession . The product of academia is research and whether this research is produced mostly by males or mostly by females is irrelevant.
   Hence the claim that there is under or over representation is a purely political point of view

   ^ the right approach to do what ?

   If you accept that the share of women in our profession is low relative to some social optimum - which I understand you don’t, stay with me for a second - then my point is that the gender gap emerges when people decide to go to grad school, not during or after, and so preferential hiring would only affect female representation by potentially inducing people marginal between academia and private sector things to stay in academia. I claim that effect is very small and so preferential hiring is basically shifting females from some schools to better schools. This is my key point. Everything else you are taking issue with is irrelevant. I am not here to convince you that women face implicit biases in the workplace or that the share of women in our profession is suboptimal. I am saying that there are people who believe especially in the latter (including me) but publicly believe the best way to address that objective is by making seminar culture nicer or by affirmative action on the job market. Those policy tools are clearly inappropriate because the gender representation gap emerges earlier.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 2 No Good !

7. Economist
   6a14
   

   I am genuinely surprised how economists can not deal and accept a second-best solution (gender quotas), because the first-best (no discrimination) is not attainable.
   There is ample evidence of different treatment women face throughout their careers. It causes distortions. Those should be addressed, and addressing them in a zero sum setting (hiring) means that someone will pay the price. Here, some able male graduates.
   But the fundamental issue here is that you can not fix it without harming anyone, because it is a zero sum. It is sad, and I am sorry for the men who got a worse outcome. And, I am certain that women were hired based on merit, because there is such excess supply of graduates that there is no cost to hiring departments - and no bad signal about women's quality (think about correcting for the abilities of those who survived to graduate who are on average better than their male peers, and think about how little difference there is between people in a phd cohort so that "competence" differences are small to none). Yes, the cost is borne by some competing men and that's unfortunate but also inevitable.
   Do you oppose taxation? Some people are net payers, others net recipients, but society is better as a whole.

   With arguments like these, I am genuinely surprised you have a PhD.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 3 Good 0 No Good !

8. Economist
   f886
   

   I am genuinely surprised how economists can not deal and accept a second-best solution (gender quotas), because the first-best (no discrimination) is not attainable.
   There is ample evidence of different treatment women face throughout their careers. It causes distortions. Those should be addressed, and addressing them in a zero sum setting (hiring) means that someone will pay the price. Here, some able male graduates.
   But the fundamental issue here is that you can not fix it without harming anyone, because it is a zero sum. It is sad, and I am sorry for the men who got a worse outcome. And, I am certain that women were hired based on merit, because there is such excess supply of graduates that there is no cost to hiring departments - and no bad signal about women's quality (think about correcting for the abilities of those who survived to graduate who are on average better than their male peers, and think about how little difference there is between people in a phd cohort so that "competence" differences are small to none). Yes, the cost is borne by some competing men and that's unfortunate but also inevitable.
   Do you oppose taxation? Some people are net payers, others net recipients, but society is better as a whole.

   With arguments like these, I am genuinely surprised you have a PhD.

   wow, that answer really highlights your intellectual superiority.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 4 No Good !

9. Economist
   bad2
   

   He is right though . From a scientist one would expect a minimum of logic, which is clearly lacking in this argument .

   I am genuinely surprised how economists can not deal and accept a second-best solution (gender quotas), because the first-best (no discrimination) is not attainable.
   There is ample evidence of different treatment women face throughout their careers. It causes distortions. Those should be addressed, and addressing them in a zero sum setting (hiring) means that someone will pay the price. Here, some able male graduates.
   But the fundamental issue here is that you can not fix it without harming anyone, because it is a zero sum. It is sad, and I am sorry for the men who got a worse outcome. And, I am certain that women were hired based on merit, because there is such excess supply of graduates that there is no cost to hiring departments - and no bad signal about women's quality (think about correcting for the abilities of those who survived to graduate who are on average better than their male peers, and think about how little difference there is between people in a phd cohort so that "competence" differences are small to none). Yes, the cost is borne by some competing men and that's unfortunate but also inevitable.
   Do you oppose taxation? Some people are net payers, others net recipients, but society is better as a whole.

   With arguments like these, I am genuinely surprised you have a PhD.

   wow, that answer really highlights your intellectual superiority.

   1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !

10. Economist
    f886
    

    He is right though . From a scientist one would expect a minimum of logic, which is clearly lacking in this argument .

    how so? Fixed supply, excess demand, jobs used to go to men, now shared with women, in relative terms (compared to previous generations of unduly privileged men) our generation loses.

    We're still privileged as I've not seen any 'imbalance' [by which I gather you mean less discrimination of women than before] in actual placements but we're less privileged than daddy and so we feel treated unfairly.

    You might disagree with the underlying observations because you're blinded by your dogmatic idiocy but there is a logical chain here.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

11. Economist
    e144
    

    I am genuinely surprised how economists can not deal and accept a second-best solution (gender quotas), because the first-best (no discrimination) is not attainable.
    There is ample evidence of different treatment women face throughout their careers. It causes distortions. Those should be addressed, and addressing them in a zero sum setting (hiring) means that someone will pay the price. Here, some able male graduates.
    But the fundamental issue here is that you can not fix it without harming anyone, because it is a zero sum. It is sad, and I am sorry for the men who got a worse outcome. And, I am certain that women were hired based on merit, because there is such excess supply of graduates that there is no cost to hiring departments - and no bad signal about women's quality (think about correcting for the abilities of those who survived to graduate who are on average better than their male peers, and think about how little difference there is between people in a phd cohort so that "competence" differences are small to none). Yes, the cost is borne by some competing men and that's unfortunate but also inevitable.
    Do you oppose taxation? Some people are net payers, others net recipients, but society is better as a whole.

    With arguments like these, I am genuinely surprised you have a PhD.

    wow, that answer really highlights your intellectual superiority.

    lol so triggered

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

12. Economist
    0d4a
    

    No imbalance?

    In Europe, WITH CERTAINTY, there is an imbalance. Schools HAVE ACCREDITATION for the gender imbalances in their hiring practices.

    Please see, for example, UK Athena Swan awards.

    Thank you for the Nobel Prize.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

13. Economist
    a867
    

    This is a forum for Phd economists/students. Anyone who doesn't understand the basic rules of logic and rigorous conversation please refrain from your rants and go to reddit.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

14. Economist
    f886
    

    This is a forum for Phd economists/students. Anyone who doesn't understand the basic rules of logic and rigorous conversation please refrain from your rants and go to reddit.

    srsly? ok...

    setwd(ejmr)
    rm(list = ls(all = T))

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 2 No Good !

15. Economist
    50c8
    

    No imbalance?
    In Europe, WITH CERTAINTY, there is an imbalance. Schools HAVE ACCREDITATION for the gender imbalances in their hiring practices.
    Please see, for example, UK Athena Swan awards.
    Thank you for the Nobel Prize.

    For those who keep defending and say that gender shouldn't matter, can you explain this situation:

    https://people.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/chau-le/publications

    Look at the publications for UEA, arguably, a good school in the UK (I know I know all those s**ts).

    Now, I applied last year, having two RR at good economics/finance journals (think of JBF/JCF/Labour Economics/ Health Economics) and I didn't make the interview.

    Now, is this a merit hire?

    1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !

16. Economist
    bad2
    

    ^ we shouldn’t make things personal.
    The concept of quota is wrong , period.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

17. Economist
    50c8
    

    ^ we shouldn’t make things personal.
    The concept of quota is wrong , period.

    okay, sorry about that, now what should I do? I stayed at my school as a postdoc and look for job next year, what could I have done to improve my chance? (converted one RR to a pub now).

    Should I change my gender? I am just furious man.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

18. Economist
    a64b
    

    ^ we shouldn’t make things personal.
    The concept of quota is wrong , period.

    Micro 101: with perfect information on supply and demand subsidies and quotas are equivalent instruments. The difference only occurs with uncertainty, in which case either one can dominate the other depending on the source of the uncertainty,

    1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !

19. Economist
    5579
    

    No imbalance?
    In Europe, WITH CERTAINTY, there is an imbalance. Schools HAVE ACCREDITATION for the gender imbalances in their hiring practices.
    Please see, for example, UK Athena Swan awards.
    Thank you for the Nobel Prize.

    For those who keep defending and say that gender shouldn't matter, can you explain this situation:
    https://people.uea.ac.uk/en/persons/chau-le/publications
    Look at the publications for UEA, arguably, a good school in the UK (I know I know all those s**ts).
    Now, I applied last year, having two RR at good economics/finance journals (think of JBF/JCF/Labour Economics/ Health Economics) and I didn't make the interview.
    Now, is this a merit hire?

    You cannot compare yourself to who got hired at a position you applied for and didn't get hired in order to make conclusions. There are so many factors that go into hiring, most of which are invisible to the applicants.

    Perhaps they had a preference for someone with her specific specialty. Perhaps her letters said things yours didn't that were important. Maybe a factor like teaching weighed into the decision. Maybe they discarded you because they thought you were unattainable.

    I have no insights as to whether her gender played a role. But the fact that there were men with a better publication record that applied is not a meaningful signal of that. I am very confident there were women with better publications who applied as well.

    While I am generally leaning towards the opposing side of the argument, there have been some good points brought up in this thread arguing that men are at an unfair disadvantage. But don't let it devolve into pointing at specific women and saying "I am better than her, but she is at a better school. Bias!" It is not only a huge jerk move, it is also a terrible argument because it ignores the noise in the market.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !

20. Economist
    1dd2
    

    ^ come on, any serious school would ignore publications in Eurosian Economic Review or whatever it is if 50c8 was honest, there can't be any other reason than gender. Anyone with a PhD and a serious advisor wouldn't let their students publish in those journals, so your argument about letters/research doesn't make sense.

    Again, anyone with a serious approach to teaching/education wouldn't publish at those journals either. So your argument for teaching doesn't make sense.

    1 year ago # QUOTE 3 Good 0 No Good !

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