Women in Economics

The effective birth of economics as a separate discipline can be traced to the year 1776 when the Scottish philosopher and now revered economist Adam Smith published ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.’ Since then, economics as a subject has seen great developments over the years, with the rise of various fields such as Industrial economics, labor economics and behavioral economics. Economics was added to the Nobel Prize list in the year 1968 and since then, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded 52 times to 86 Laureates between 1969 and 2020.

However, out of these 86 laureates, only two women have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences namely Elinor Ostrom (2009) and Esther Duflo (2019).

In an imperial college such as Harvard, only 3 out of the 43 members identify as women and only 20% of senior economists in Europe are women. This brings to light the skewed representation of women in the field of economics worldwide, in managerial roles and academia alike. However, this does not imply that the field has an issue per se, but that the treatment and biases experienced by women to achieve the same objectives as their male counterparts are inconsistent. Thus, the reason for fewer women in economics is in fact, fewer women in economics, one feeding the other. With a lack of female economists all over the world, the field doesn’t quite appear appealing and rewarding enough for women now.

With women being a part of a larger chunk of customer bases for business and half the citizens and voters being women, business and government decisions can affect different genders differently. With a lack of representation in decision-making bodies, the skewed composition of men and women can lead to inappropriate gender-neutrality and ignorant policies. Greater diversity will lead to greater diversity in the topics being examined.

Low representation is partly a function of economics being a male-dominated discipline. Study after study finds that when both men and women receive low grades in a discipline dominated by men, it is the women who are the most likely to drop out.

Another study finds that when men and women of equal mathematical ability are asked to rate their ability, women rate it less highly than men. Their teachers rate them worse too. Letters of recommendation for women tend to be shorter and focus more on personality traits and less on skills or intellect than those for men.

However, with improving times, more women are propping up in leadership roles. One such example is the Indian economist, Gita Gopinath, who is currently the Chief Economic Advisor for the IMF. Other inspiring names of world-class female economists in the list are Claudia Golden, Janet Yellen, Dambisa Moyo and many more.

With good role models and increased visibility of females in the economic field, it is expected to boost morale and make the idea of being a successful economist more “normal” for girls and women around the world.