Gender imbalance in flyout « Economics Job Market Rumors

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Gender imbalance in flyout

Economist
c20f

Demand side here. I just want to calm everyone down.

We posted our ad last week. We phrased it as "Women in particular are encouraged to apply". Read "We will only hire a woman". My advice to all men on this thread: you see an ad like this one, learn to read between the lines, and draw the consequences. Just so you are warned: we WILL fly out a few men, because we want to make it look like we do not discriminate. But we already decided that a woman is going to be hired.

I don't know if this poster is being honest, but I can say that "women are encouraged to apply" does not usually mean "we will only hire a woman". We always include it, and we have hired both men and women. If you are a man, do not be discouraged about a school that uses this type of language. It probably means just what it says or at worst "tie goes to a woman".

The number of schools requiring a diversity statement or a discussion of contribution to diversity and inclusion in the cover letter is way up relative to just a couple of years ago. The diversity plague is settling in rapidly.

Again, don't read anything into diversity statements. It is just for HR or admin. It doesn't usually signal anything else. Just suck it up and write a couple paragraphs saying nice things about diversity. The job market involves lots of hoops to jump through. This is a ridiculously minor one. If it really bothers you, any job that doesn't consist solely of trolling the internet is going to suck for you.
Here is the bottom line.
1. Some people have preferences to hire women. Some people have preferences to hire men. This preference varies in strength and openness.
2. I don't want to take a stance on which of these is greater. You read twitter you see one thing. You read this board you see another. I also don't want to take a moral stance on this in this message, I am trying to stick to practical advice.
3. I will say that gender preferences are not an overwhelmingly important factor in the job market on the whole. Lots of men do well. Lots of women do well. Lots of men do poorly. Lots of women do poorly. It's not impossible for men like some people on here imply or hugely unfairly rough on women like some people on twitter say.
4. Most importantly, you shouldn't let all this affect your strategy or get in your head if you are a candidate. Just go about your business. If you are slightly hurt because of your gender, there is nothing you can do about it.
5. If you are a male, never, ever, ever, mention any sort of anti-diversity stuff when you are on the market. I have seen it multiple times. Diversity statements that could have been pulled off of EJMR. Male candidates complaining during flyouts how they are being screwed out of jobs by women. This is an incredibly bad idea.
6. If you are a female, be a little cautious about how you play that card. If you come on too strong and say things that come across as "I know you are sexist because you are a male economist", that could really backfire on you.

Do you really think women are not massively favored at the job market stage?

This doesn't mean they might not be discriminated against in other stages of the economics education, of course.

2 months ago # QUOTE 11 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
d7b6

Demand side here. I just want to calm everyone down.

We posted our ad last week. We phrased it as "Women in particular are encouraged to apply". Read "We will only hire a woman". My advice to all men on this thread: you see an ad like this one, learn to read between the lines, and draw the consequences. Just so you are warned: we WILL fly out a few men, because we want to make it look like we do not discriminate. But we already decided that a woman is going to be hired.

I don't know if this poster is being honest, but I can say that "women are encouraged to apply" does not usually mean "we will only hire a woman". We always include it, and we have hired both men and women. If you are a man, do not be discouraged about a school that uses this type of language. It probably means just what it says or at worst "tie goes to a woman".

The number of schools requiring a diversity statement or a discussion of contribution to diversity and inclusion in the cover letter is way up relative to just a couple of years ago. The diversity plague is settling in rapidly.

Again, don't read anything into diversity statements. It is just for HR or admin. It doesn't usually signal anything else. Just suck it up and write a couple paragraphs saying nice things about diversity. The job market involves lots of hoops to jump through. This is a ridiculously minor one. If it really bothers you, any job that doesn't consist solely of trolling the internet is going to suck for you.
Here is the bottom line.
1. Some people have preferences to hire women. Some people have preferences to hire men. This preference varies in strength and openness.
2. I don't want to take a stance on which of these is greater. You read twitter you see one thing. You read this board you see another. I also don't want to take a moral stance on this in this message, I am trying to stick to practical advice.
3. I will say that gender preferences are not an overwhelmingly important factor in the job market on the whole. Lots of men do well. Lots of women do well. Lots of men do poorly. Lots of women do poorly. It's not impossible for men like some people on here imply or hugely unfairly rough on women like some people on twitter say.
4. Most importantly, you shouldn't let all this affect your strategy or get in your head if you are a candidate. Just go about your business. If you are slightly hurt because of your gender, there is nothing you can do about it.
5. If you are a male, never, ever, ever, mention any sort of anti-diversity stuff when you are on the market. I have seen it multiple times. Diversity statements that could have been pulled off of EJMR. Male candidates complaining during flyouts how they are being screwed out of jobs by women. This is an incredibly bad idea.
6. If you are a female, be a little cautious about how you play that card. If you come on too strong and say things that come across as "I know you are sexist because you are a male economist", that could really backfire on you.

Do you really think women are not massively favored at the job market stage?
This doesn't mean they might not be discriminated against in other stages of the economics education, of course.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "massively". But I was explicitly trying to avoid that particular debate. My main point was to give advice to male job market candidates to not let the most doomsday posts on this forum get in their head too much. And certainly not let it affect their strategy.

For example, if a male candidate didn't apply for a job because the listing said "women are encouraged to apply" or are asked for a diversity statement they would be making a huge mistake. In the past 5 years we have listed 6 positions and done both those things for each one. We hired 4 men and 2 women....See full post

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 Good 5 No Good !
Economist
7dac

Do you really think women are not massively favored at the job market stage?
This doesn't mean they might not be discriminated against in other stages of the economics education, of course.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "massively". But I was explicitly trying to avoid that particular debate. My main point was to give advice to male job market candidates to not let the most doomsday posts on this forum get in their head too much. And certainly not let it affect their strategy.
For example, if a male candidate didn't apply for a job because the listing said "women are encouraged to apply" or are asked for a diversity statement they would be making a huge mistake. In the past 5 years we have listed 6 positions and done both those things for each one. We hired 4 men and 2 women....See full post

Agreed on not letting this influence strategy.

Disagreed on downplaying the extent of this discrimination.

2 months ago # QUOTE 7 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
0800

D7B6 you're still avoiding the fact that if any top male candidate was a female rather than a male, they would just go farther on the fresh ap market plain and simple, particularly so if they are a white female even moderately moderately (sic) easy on the eyes. for a star 6 fly outs would be 11, 1 offer would be 3. If a new ap is from a lower ranked school than expected they are almost always female as of very recent. If this last conjecture is wrong please show me the data with proper controls for country of origin, english skills, research productivity, perhaps even teaching evals if a ugrad/master's school. I'm not going to say whether this is a plus or minus, it is simply just what seems to be the case.

2 months ago # QUOTE 9 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
ac3f

There are fluctuations in demand all the time. I do macro and I was on the market the year when FEDs decided not to hire and all I could do is to suck it up (like everybody else). My personal experience from the other side of the market is that the gender effect is only marginal and most likely will go away after the most striking imbalances will be corrected and by that I mean getting just a couple of women rather than having zero, not getting to 50%.

Do not worry about things you cannot change, write a good jmp and you will be fine.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 Good 6 No Good !
Economist
9632

Agreed on not letting this influence strategy.

I no longer in good conscience advise male students to aim for a career in academia because of this stuff. Perhaps that is what was intended all along. But what those who push this forget is, that if this ship academia sinks, we all sink with it.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 Good 1 No Good !
Economist
3799

D7B6 you're still avoiding the fact that if any top male candidate was a female rather than a male, they would just go farther on the fresh ap market plain and simple, particularly so if they are a white female even moderately moderately (sic) easy on the eyes. for a star 6 fly outs would be 11, 1 offer would be 3. If a new ap is from a lower ranked school than expected they are almost always female as of very recent. If this last conjecture is wrong please show me the data with proper controls for country of origin, english skills, research productivity, perhaps even teaching evals if a ugrad/master's school. I'm not going to say whether this is a plus or minus, it is simply just what seems to be the case.

I don't see how I am "avoiding" any facts. I am not trying to prove or disprove any advantage that females might have.

What I am pushing back on is the extreme posters that say it is "impossible" for males to get a job. I assume posters like the one above who say they tell their male students not to go into academia are trolls. But in the event that some male grad students may read and take this stuff seriously, it doesn't seem right to let that stand. If you are at all tempted to believe it, just look at placement records. Lots of male candidates continue to get jobs at all ranks of schools. Can I tell you that they wouldn't have got a better placement if they were women? Obviously not, I have no idea what the counterfactual is and it seems very possible that some of them got turned down for higher ranked jobs because of efforts to increase female representation. But to say that males have no chance is blatantly dishonest.

The problem with threads like this is that there are posters who raise genuine concerns about the consequences of diversity policies, posters who exaggerate these concerns for rhetorical purposes, and posters who just make stuff up to troll.

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
58a5

1. Some people have preferences to hire women. Some people have preferences to hire men. This preference varies in strength and openness.
2. I don't want to take a stance on which of these is greater. You read twitter you see one thing. You read this board you see another. I also don't want to take a moral stance on this in this message, I am trying to stick to practical advice.
3. I will say that gender preferences are not an overwhelmingly important factor in the job market on the whole. Lots of men do well. Lots of women do well. Lots of men do poorly. Lots of women do poorly. It's not impossible for men like some people on here imply or hugely unfairly rough on women like some people on twitter say.
This is just a lie though. We don't need your anecdotes when actual data exist. Male economists prefer to hire men and women equally, while female economists strongly prefer to hire women. There is no mythical group which is biased in favour of men: https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360

2 months ago # QUOTE 8 Good 1 No Good !
Economist
58a5

There are fluctuations in demand all the time. I do macro and I was on the market the year when FEDs decided not to hire and all I could do is to suck it up (like everybody else). My personal experience from the other side of the market is that the gender effect is only marginal and most likely will go away after the most striking imbalances will be corrected and by that I mean getting just a couple of women rather than having zero, not getting to 50%.
Do not worry about things you cannot change, write a good jmp and you will be fine.

Uh why would you believe that? Women openly discriminate in favour of women. As departments become more female, the discrimination against males is going to increase, not decrease. How could you possibly claim otherwise, what data are you using?

2 months ago # QUOTE 7 Good 2 No Good !
Economist
cad4

This is just a lie though. We don't need your anecdotes when actual data exist. Male economists prefer to hire men and women equally, while female economists strongly prefer to hire women. There is no mythical group which is biased in favour of men: https://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360

Wow, never seen that before. I guess if the results went in the other (correct direction?), there would have been a NY times article on it and many stories on CNN covering it, and a bunch of tweets and high fives on EconTwitter.

2 months ago # QUOTE 6 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
ea9f

Bump

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
81c5

Don't freak out. My impression is that departments get huge pressure from admins to hire women and URM. What that means, they all invite the same star women and make them offers. Of course, they all have to reject all but one offer, and in the end the overall effect is quite small imho.

2 months ago # QUOTE 4 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
ea9f

Don't freak out. My impression is that departments get huge pressure from admins to hire women and URM. What that means, they all invite the same star women and make them offers. Of course, they all have to reject all but one offer, and in the end the overall effect is quite small imho.

I don’t think you can call an effect small when panels are voluntarily increasing the number of female flyouts on purpose

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
8178

d7b6 is an extremely smart person that tries, by writing a very long and verbose post, to downplay at every occasion the discrimination against men:
" Some people have preferences to hire women. Some people have preferences to hire men."
" I don't want to take a stance on which of these is greater. "
" gender preferences are not an overwhelmingly important factor in the job market on the whole."
"Lots of men do well."

All of this denial does a poor job of hiding someone with an obvious agenda. It is not a marginal matter, men are brutally discriminated against and in my opinion denying it, or downplaying this fact, is a dangerous act of cowardice. These are people on the other side, whose lives you are gambling with.

2 months ago # QUOTE 5 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
0eda

met with the associate dean at my top 10 finance dept. they other day and she intimated only offers will be made to women because of the current faculty ratio.

2 months ago # QUOTE 3 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
677e

met with the associate dean at my top 10 finance dept. they other day and she intimated only offers will be made to women because of the current faculty ratio.

record this conversation and release after you get tenure

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 Good 1 No Good !
Economist
1161

Y'all are fkin delusional.

Department: Women are encouraged to apply. Tie goes to a woman.

EJMR: Look at all this sexism! They will only hire a woman! Us poor men! *Whine*

Department: In the past 5 years we have listed 6 positions and HIRED 4 MEN AND 2 WOMEN

1 month ago # QUOTE 1 Good 2 No Good !
Economist
ea9f

^ tie goes to a woman is plain and simple discrimination.
If your department is using this rule it is engaging in discriminatory hiring practices

1 month ago # QUOTE 1 Good 1 No Good !
Economist
9632

^^ It is clear to everyone who has paid attention that this is not a matter of "fiddling round a bit at the margin".

1 month ago # QUOTE 2 Good 0 No Good !
Economist
1161

met with the associate dean at my top 10 finance dept. they other day and she intimated only offers will be made to women because of the current faculty ratio.

is it possible, maybe, just maybe, that the current faculty ratio is low because women have been discriminated against for literally decades? and that current efforts are not trying to give women an advantage, but to simply *address* the *disadvantage* that women face? there is *so much* evidence that this is the case. if you're going to argue that it isn't, and if you're too scared to actually and ask and listen to your colleagues/classmates, at least read/watch the horror stories that yellen, athey, bertrand, and other top economists have shared of the *decades* of discrimination that they've put up with at their 2019 ASSA panel.

these policies are not designed to give women an advantage. they are designed to *address* existing *disadvantages*. this is not rocket science.

1 month ago # QUOTE 1 Good 8 No Good !

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