The Extent of 2019 Gender Shock « Economics Job Market Rumors

1 year - 65 posts - Latest - RSS
Thread: 330 Goods vs 134 No Goods

Economics Job Market Rumors » Job Market » General Economics Job Market Discussion

The Extent of 2019 Gender Shock

Economist
ce6f

Between 2013 and 2018, only 20.4 percent of job market stars—defined based on a rank-weighted flyouts score; roughly speaking, a student with flyouts at the equivalent of Chicago Booth, UCL, Penn State, and Toronto would be just above the cut-off—were female. During this period, the percentage never exceeded 25 percent. Indeed, despite the attention paid to gender issues within economics at the 2018 AEA meetings, only 7 of 42 star students in 2018, or 16.7 percent, were female.
These numbers are substantially lower than the overall percentage of women pursuing economics PhDs, which in U.S. programs range between 30 and 35 percent, and the overall percentage of female APs, which ranges between 25 and 30 percent in U.S. programs.
There is a stark difference in the cohort of 2019 in which: 20 of 43 stars, or 46.5 percent, were female.
(Excerpts from: http://www.kevinbryanecon.com/YoungStars.pdf)

Lest we forget that only 13.7% of published research in economics is done by female authors. (See West, Jacquet, King, Correll, and Bergstorm 2013). So even the current make up of gender in the discipline is achieved by a heavy dose of flagrant reverse discrimination. Fractions of female representation in econ academia are the following:

Econ Phds: 30~35%
Econ APs: 25~30%
Econ Tenured Professors: 20%
Econ Output: 13.7%

So there you have it.
Dismal science, indeed!!!

1 year ago # QUOTE 15 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
3d87

^ Why give them tenure if they can simply replace them with other female rookies though? The gender ratio stays the same, they get the credit of hiring even more women (no one talks about denied tenure cases), and at least they have the option value with the rookie -- they may always get lucky.

Can anyone explain the no goods? If the objective is to maximize the quality of the department subject to a "diversity constraint" (# female profs), isn't it a strictly dominant strategy to hire a female rookie when a female AP is not good enough to get tenure? You still have the same number of female profs, which keeps admins happy, and the option value of the new AP. What am I missing here?

1 year ago # QUOTE 3 Jab 2 No Jab !
Economist
a63e

nothing works, bc the goal is no meritocracy. the new constraint after your genius plan would be AA for tenure rates.

1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
3d87

nothing works, bc the goal is no meritocracy. the new constraint after your genius plan would be AA for tenure rates.

That depends largely on the nature of constraints faced by the departments. In some cases, constraints are to a large extent self-imposed: if the CV is weak compared to other people who made tenure, if the department does not vote for a person, and if the letters are tepid, it would be extremely hard to make the case that this person deserves tenure.

1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
0136

Not saying its true but all of these statistics would be consistent with a story of

(i) discrimination against women that is decreasing over time, the benefits of which are felt most in PhD admissions, next in AP positions, next in associate/full promotions (and research is a function of this)

(ii) preferences of women changing (more women choosing to do economics). Note that this explanation would have to be explored more in detail as it could also be due to declining hostility of the profession towards females/more female role-models, or it could be due to simply more females choosing quantitative subjects early in their studies.

Between 2013 and 2018, only 20.4 percent of job market stars—defined based on a rank-weighted flyouts score; roughly speaking, a student with flyouts at the equivalent of Chicago Booth, UCL, Penn State, and Toronto would be just above the cut-off—were female. During this period, the percentage never exceeded 25 percent. Indeed, despite the attention paid to gender issues within economics at the 2018 AEA meetings, only 7 of 42 star students in 2018, or 16.7 percent, were female.
These numbers are substantially lower than the overall percentage of women pursuing economics PhDs, which in U.S. programs range between 30 and 35 percent, and the overall percentage of female APs, which ranges between 25 and 30 percent in U.S. programs.
There is a stark difference in the cohort of 2019 in which: 20 of 43 stars, or 46.5 percent, were female.
(Excerpts from: http://www.kevinbryanecon.com/YoungStars.pdf)

Lest we forget that only 13.7% of published research in economics is done by female authors. (See West, Jacquet, King, Correll, and Bergstorm 2013). So even the current make up of gender in the discipline is achieved by a heavy dose of flagrant reverse discrimination. Fractions of female representation in econ academia are the following:
Econ Phds: 30~35%
Econ APs: 25~30%
Econ Tenured Professors: 20%
Econ Output: 13.7%
So there you have it.
Dismal science, indeed!!!

1 year ago # QUOTE 7 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
b4de

Not saying its true but all of these statistics would be consistent with a story of
(i) discrimination against women that is decreasing over time, the benefits of which are felt most in PhD admissions, next in AP positions, next in associate/full promotions (and research is a function of this)
(ii) preferences of women changing (more women choosing to do economics). Note that this explanation would have to be explored more in detail as it could also be due to declining hostility of the profession towards females/more female role-models, or it could be due to simply more females choosing quantitative subjects early in their studies.

Between 2013 and 2018, only 20.4 percent of job market stars—defined based on a rank-weighted flyouts score; roughly speaking, a student with flyouts at the equivalent of Chicago Booth, UCL, Penn State, and Toronto would be just above the cut-off—were female. During this period, the percentage never exceeded 25 percent. Indeed, despite the attention paid to gender issues within economics at the 2018 AEA meetings, only 7 of 42 star students in 2018, or 16.7 percent, were female.
These numbers are substantially lower than the overall percentage of women pursuing economics PhDs, which in U.S. programs range between 30 and 35 percent, and the overall percentage of female APs, which ranges between 25 and 30 percent in U.S. programs.
There is a stark difference in the cohort of 2019 in which: 20 of 43 stars, or 46.5 percent, were female.
(Excerpts from: http://www.kevinbryanecon.com/YoungStars.pdf)

Lest we forget that only 13.7% of published research in economics is done by female authors. (See West, Jacquet, King, Correll, and Bergstorm 2013). So even the current make up of gender in the discipline is achieved by a heavy dose of flagrant reverse discrimination. Fractions of female representation in econ academia are the following:
Econ Phds: 30~35%
Econ APs: 25~30%
Econ Tenured Professors: 20%
Econ Output: 13.7%
So there you have it.
Dismal science, indeed!!!

One of these explanations requires a vast patriarchal conspiracy orchestrated over the span of years across vast geographic distances, and the other explanation does not. Of course wokeists say the conspiracy is the truth.

1 year ago # QUOTE 6 Jab 4 No Jab !
Economist
fd53

nothing works, bc the goal is no meritocracy. the new constraint after your genius plan would be AA for tenure rates.

Holy cow you are dumb. The point is that the status quo is not in fact a meritocracy. The status quo is (and for centuries has been): men are preferred over equally qualified women (by societal norms, in seminars, networks, hostility towards women in STEM fields, etc. etc.).

The diversity push is to increase average quality and actually achieve meritocracy by not discriminating against qualified women. That is all. All these posts talking feigning worries about lowering quality are so fundamentally blind to not recognize that. This is not difficult to understand.

1 year ago # QUOTE 5 Jab 19 No Jab !
Economist
6fa2

Something is definitely going on here. Structural discrimination is not something which is fixed in a year.

1 year ago # QUOTE 4 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
09a3

The motivations are not the same.

Women will date, mate, and marry men who are of equal or above rank as them, generally. The the desire to move up has diminishing marginal utility.

Men on the other hand, will widen their pool of date, mate, and marry, by moving up. So men's moving up does not have as much of a diminishing marginal utility as women do.

1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 6 No Jab !
Economist
c88b

Not saying its true but all of these statistics would be consistent with a story of
(i) discrimination against women that is decreasing over time, the benefits of which are felt most in PhD admissions, next in AP positions, next in associate/full promotions (and research is a function of this)
(ii) preferences of women changing (more women choosing to do economics). Note that this explanation would have to be explored more in detail as it could also be due to declining hostility of the profession towards females/more female role-models, or it could be due to simply more females choosing quantitative subjects early in their studies.

Explanation (i) would predict a slow adjustment, which is inconsistent with the big jump in 2019 mentioned by OP.

1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
36a4

Being on the hiring committee last year (MRM applied micro), I will say that it seemed that an unusually high number of the best candidates (ex ante and ex post) were women.

We didn't consciously target women candidates, but it ended up that a majority of our interviews went to women.

I will also say that it seemed like some really strong men fell through the cracks, though -- i.e. candidates that ex ante we didn't think we'd have a shot of getting, we were actually very competitive for.

1 year ago # QUOTE 9 Jab 2 No Jab !
Economist
d4be

hrms gonna hrm, lrms gonna lrm. thats the way the world works

1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
67a3

Oh, it breaks my heart to see those stars
Smashing a perfectly good guitar
I don't know who they think they are
Smashing a perfectly good guitar

1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
f800

^ Why give them tenure if they can simply replace them with other female rookies though? The gender ratio stays the same, they get the credit of hiring even more women (no one talks about denied tenure cases), and at least they have the option value with the rookie -- they may always get lucky.

Can anyone explain the no goods? If the objective is to maximize the quality of the department subject to a "diversity constraint" (# female profs), isn't it a strictly dominant strategy to hire a female rookie when a female AP is not good enough to get tenure? You still have the same number of female profs, which keeps admins happy, and the option value of the new AP. What am I missing here?

Why do you think that the forces which are successful at creating a more equal distribution of APs are not going to be successful at creating a more equal distribution of TPs?

1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
2feb

nothing works, bc the goal is no meritocracy. the new constraint after your genius plan would be AA for tenure rates.

Holy cow you are dumb. The point is that the status quo is not in fact a meritocracy. The status quo is (and for centuries has been): men are preferred over equally qualified women (by societal norms, in seminars, networks, hostility towards women in STEM fields, etc. etc.).
The diversity push is to increase average quality and actually achieve meritocracy by not discriminating against qualified women. That is all. All these posts talking feigning worries about lowering quality are so fundamentally blind to not recognize that. This is not difficult to understand.

This is incredibly naive. If you are correct, then you would be satisfied by the fact that admission rates to PhD programs and hiring rates as APs are above their application rates. That is, women are able to fulfill their desired engagement with the economics profession at least as well as men can. It's just that they're not as interested, just as men aren't as interested in sociology, social work, etc.

So there's no problem, right?

1 year ago # QUOTE 5 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
3b39

Being on the hiring committee last year (MRM applied micro), I will say that it seemed that an unusually high number of the best candidates (ex ante and ex post) were women.
We didn't consciously target women candidates, but it ended up that a majority of our interviews went to women.
I will also say that it seemed like some really strong men fell through the cracks, though -- i.e. candidates that ex ante we didn't think we'd have a shot of getting, we were actually very competitive for.

If you didn't explicitly target women, then you're the only department I know of that doesn't. I've been on hiring committees at two MRMs and women are explicitly favored.

1 year ago # QUOTE 8 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
c90a

Why do you think that the forces which are successful at creating a more equal distribution of APs are not going to be successful at creating a more equal distribution of TPs?

I'm not so sure. When hiring a rookie, subjective assessments play a big role, since research output is usually zero at the time and teaching experience is usually very limited, so it's easy to argue one way or another. When making a tenure decision, the assessment is much more objective: the letters come from experts in the field rather than advisors, but mostly research output and teaching output are observable, so it's much harder to argue that someone obviously unqualified should get tenure.

Btw I used to be against "counting pubs" for tenure, but if the institutional bias becomes too strong it might become "second best" to do so in most universities outside the top 20, by setting a minimum number of say top 30 or top 50 publications in a clearly defined journals list.

1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
fd53

nothing works, bc the goal is no meritocracy. the new constraint after your genius plan would be AA for tenure rates.

Holy cow you are dumb. The point is that the status quo is not in fact a meritocracy. The status quo is (and for centuries has been): men are preferred over equally qualified women (by societal norms, in seminars, networks, hostility towards women in STEM fields, etc. etc.).
The diversity push is to increase average quality and actually achieve meritocracy by not discriminating against qualified women. That is all. All these posts talking feigning worries about lowering quality are so fundamentally blind to not recognize that. This is not difficult to understand.

This is incredibly naive. If you are correct, then you would be satisfied by the fact that admission rates to PhD programs and hiring rates as APs are above their application rates. That is, women are able to fulfill their desired engagement with the economics profession at least as well as men can. It's just that they're not as interested, just as men aren't as interested in sociology, social work, etc.
So there's no problem, right?

Huh? I would be if that were the case but it's obviously not? The OP's statistics clearly show that women were under-hired relative to proportion for 6 straight years (and probably much, much longer, since leaky pipeline persists for senior positions). Only after econ finally recognized its sexism (2018-2019) did this change. The fact that we've had 6 years where men were over-represented and now 1 year where women were over-represented really, really does not mean that suddenly there is anti-male sexism. Come on now.

1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 3 No Jab !
Economist
e8dc

Let me get this right,
1) For 6 years ('13-'18), 20% JM stars female relative to 30-35% of all PhDs. EJMR: "there is definitely no discrimination against women"
2) For 1 year ('19), 47% JM stars female relative to 30-35% of PhDs (FYI this is still closer to the window than 20%). EJMR: "reverse sexism! i'm being discriminated against as a man! things have gone way too far!"
The stats still stacked *against* women for 6 out of the 7 years. If things were truly equal, there'd be more women stars relative to population in around half of all years. The 1% of white guys that still thinks you're being discriminated against, you really need to get over yourselves.
[And this is not even factoring in the discrimination that causes only 30-35% of econ profession to be women in the first place (relative to 50% of population). If you you are tempted to as "what discrimination?" you're clearly not actually engaging in this conversation in a productive way (ie listening and responding thoughtfully), you're just being dumb and putting your head in the sand.]

You can explain discrepancies between gender of stars and non-stars without discrimination. But no such story would result in a sudden jump between years.
While there has clearly been a change in discrimination, we can only tell the change in discrimination, not the original or new level, because we do not know the fraction of JM stars who should be female in the absence of discrimination.

I agree - this also implies that the field isn't as meritocratic as it thinks it is.

1 year ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
eb64

Someone should FOIA the emails of chairs and deans. Pretty sure what we’ll find.

1 year ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 1 No Jab !

« Previous 123 4 Next »

Recently Announced

Upcoming

Economics

Job Market

Off Topic

Job Market Wiki

Job Market Candidates

Updates

The Extent of 2019 Gender Shock

Reply »