Gender bias and the study of economics

When I decided to write this piece on the gender bias in the study of economics the only famous female economist I could think of was Joan Robinson, the author of the Economics of Imperfect Competition published in 1931.

Just to ensure I wasn’t off track I consulted Linda Yueh’s “The Great Economists.” Of the twelve economists listed, Joan was the lone female presence.  Yueh says in her book that of the 50,000 academic economists operating in the world today only a fifth are women. Ironically Linda Yueh is herself an economics professor at the London Business School.

The Royal Economic Society (RES) published some research in April (Tackling the gender gap in who studies economics) examining the gender bias in the study of economics both as a school subject and as a potential degree subject.

Although the popularity of economics has shown significant growth since 2013 growing by 63% since then there is still an overwhelming preference for the subject amongst male students. Boys outnumber girls in economics in the UK by more than two-to-one.

The gender gap has persisted and, if anything, has grown wider over the last decade. This contrasts with STEM subjects where gender gaps have been narrowing. But, unlike STEM there have been, to date, no large-scale initiatives to attract girls into economics.

Focus group research undertaken by the RES and Discover Economics indicates that girls believe there is a close relationship between economics and mathematics, that it’s a difficult subject and will lead after graduating in the subject to a boring nine to five job, albeit one that will be well paid.  According to the RES, “Economics graduates earn more than graduates in any other subject, conditional on their academic qualifications and socio-economic background.”

Is that how you see it?

The report identifies three sets of perception issues:

1) around the subject of economics itself

2) the image of economics students

3) views about careers undertaken by economics graduates

The report says both boys and girls believe economics is about money and statistics and they also struggle to differentiate economics from business.  Girls disproportionately believe that economics is dominated by numbers, data and graphs.

This is a clear contrast to the popularity of psychology with girls which is obviously about people. Girls do not think that economics will be interesting or enjoyable and they see economics as a difficult subject and one that they will not do well in.  Psychology A Level entries in 2023 were 73.2% female but only 29.4% in economics.

Think of a number

Students who are interested in what economics can offer should not feel put off by the emphasis on abstract mathematical modelling or a perception of a narrow analytical approach that feels disconnected from their interests or pressing public policy issues.

The association of economics with maths is an issue for girls, although strangely a bigger percentage of girls study maths than economics. Boys also see economics as difficult but one that they will find rewarding both intellectually and financially.

If individuals think of economics applied to areas of real life from energy and agriculture to healthcare and transport, then it becomes much more interesting than simple number crunching.

Clever, opinionated and competitive

Girls are aware of the gender imbalance in economics classrooms and “they are more likely to be put off by their view of economics students as a particular type of male, one who is clever, opinionated and competitive.”

This is in spite of the evidence, where girls perform as well as boys in economics A level and out-perform them at university. The gender gap in favour of boys is not universal and several Eastern European countries including Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Croatia and Slovakia have proportionally more women graduating in economics than men.

What next?

To address these issues, the report recommends that better information should be provided on what economics is about. There is a strong need for students to have good information about what different subjects are about before they make critical decisions about what to study. This applies not only to economics, but also to other subjects that students have not previously studied. Evidence suggests that the earlier in the education process that pupils are exposed to economics the more engaged they become with it.

Meanwhile the Royal Economics Society is energetically committed to spreading interest in and engagement with economics through their Discover Economics Campaign including their Young Economist of the Year initiative.  So hopefully in the coming years some other female names will join Joan in the big name line-up of economists.