Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn have just published a paper that tracks thousands of American academics from the time they first get their PhDs through to their tenure and promotion decisions. They conclude:
Economics is the one field where gender differences in tenure receipt seem to remain even after background and productivity controls are factored in and even for single childless women.
Ginther and Kahn never use the word sexism. They only use the word discrimination to question its existence, saying their results suggest "women’s entry into tenure-track academia is dominated by choice rather than by any discrimination at hiring." They do find their results, "deeply troubling."
Noah Smith uses no such restraint. In his latest post, he takes Ginther and Kahn's cautious and nuanced results, and leaps to the conclusion that economics "seems to have a built-in bias that prevents women from advancing."
Really?
I have never seen a woman denied tenure when a man with similar number and quality of publications was awarded it. I don't deny Ginther and Kahn's findings, but might there be a non-discriminatory explanation of the fact that a woman in economics with X number of publications is less likely to receive tenure than a man with X publications?
The limitations of Ginther and Kahn's data mean that they are not able to control for publication quality. One of the ways that economics differs from other disciplines is in its extremely hierarchical journal rankings: no number of blog posts, magazine articles or publications in unknown journals can ever compensate for the absence of a top publication. Yet the number of top journals in economics is tiny relative to the number of people who would like to publish in them, hence top journal publication is a risky and competitive game. As Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy describe here, women tend not to like or thrive in this kind of cut-throat competition. Suppose a typical women pursues a publication strategy that will lead to five publications in mid-ranked journals with a fair degree of certainty, whereas a typical man pursues a publication strategy that will lead either to five publications in top journals or no publications at all. The few men who are actually successful in getting published will have, on average, publications of higher quality than those of women. Hence they would, conditional on the number of accepted publications, have a higher probability of achieving tenure than women. (Indeed, earlier work by Kahn found that men had, on average, higher quality publications than women.)
It also appears that Ginther and Kahn are not able to control for employer quality (see footnote 5 here). Suppose that, instead of there being bias against women in the tenure process, there is actually bias in favour of women in the hiring process. If universities engage in some kind of affirmative action then, all else being equal, women would end up being hired by higher quality institutions – and institutions with higher tenure standards – than comparable men. A woman with five publications might find herself at a university that demands seven publications, while her male counterpart is at a university than demands four. Hiring preferences for women would be expected to lead – given equal productivity and gender-neutral tenure standards – to a higher rate of tenure denial for women. I should note that this interpretation of the evidence is speculative – Ginther and Kahn also look at hiring, and find no evidence of discrimination in favour of women.
I've seen a number of negative tenure recommendations over the years. Most follow a familiar script. Someone is appointed young, fresh out of graduate school, with no time to gain experience with the publication process. They take on adminstrative duties, labouring under the misapprehension that being nice and helpful will get them tenure. They may have children while on the tenure track. They pursue bad publication strategies, for example, they sit on revise and resubmits. They generally have some bad luck – for example, a journal that dithers with their submission for years. And they typically lack strong and effective advocates, either within or outside their departments.
Noah Smith ends his article by saying:
… it’s time for economics to acknowledge that it has a sexism problem and to fix it. The American Economic Association, and other powers that be within the profession, need to start working to make the field more welcoming to women.
It's not up to the "powers that be" to fix the problem. Yes, there are a few things that the American Economics Association could do. For example, I would like to see double-blind refereeing reintroduced into the AEA journals, and attention paid to the representation of women – and people from smaller universities, and other under-represented groups – on the program for the AEA meetings. Providing leadership and guidance on ways to make hotel room interviews more comfortable for interviewees would be a good idea.
Unfortunately, when the "powers that be" decide it's time to start working on gender problem, the solution generally involves getting women to sit on committees. Not only does this take away from women's (professionally rewarding) research time, there is a distinct lack of evidence to suggest that, say, having a woman on a prize committee leads to a higher probability of said prize being awarded to a woman. Any proposed solution that adds to the typical woman's administrative workload will increase, not decrease, the gender gap in academe.
"Sexism" is not the result of some high level conspiracy. It is the product of millions of every day actions by thousands of ordinary people. Let's get back to tenure decisions. Tenure denials are never made arbitrarily. If a man with 5 publications gets tenure while a woman with 5 publications does not, there must be a reason: either the man has higher quality publications, or higher impact publications, or more evidence of national or international reputation, or better letters of reference.
But a scholars's reputation and impact is determined by the decisions of others: who they choose to acknowledge, who they choose to network with. Every single active academic can, through the citation and other decisions they make every day, influence other academics' reputations – and thus the probability that they will receive tenure or get promoted.
Who do you cite? If you're like most people, you're more likely to cite the seminal work of some well-known male academic than the work of a female scholar. Certainly Noah Smith is – his plea for less sexism references seven men and five women. If women aren't cited, their papers will be seen as lower impact/lower quality publications.
Do you give women credit for their ideas? Just about every woman has had the experience of sitting in a committee, saying something, and having her contribution ignored. A man will then restate her point, and he is listened to, and receives credit for the idea. Here's an example: GInther and Kahn's paper concluded by arguing that "…the results indicate that professional development efforts such as the [American Economic Association's] Committee on the Status of Women in the Economic Profession’s CEMENT mentoring workshops remain necessary." Noah Smith ends his article by making a very similar point. Who is getting credit for the idea on social media? Noah. The point is: if women's contributions are appropriated, the impact of women's work will be underestimated, and women will have a lower chance of progressing in academic careers.
How do you word your letters of reference? Do you use the same adjectives to describe women and men? Or are women delightful, pleasant, conscientious and hard-working while men are strong, original, insightful and persistent?
Who do you invite to present at conferences or departmental seminars? If a man, do you turn down invitations to participate in conferences with all-male line-ups (see the gendered conference campaign)? Do you make it easy for female colleagues to come for a drink in the bar after a seminar by corralling them into the bar-going group?
The economics profession is far from perfect. I personally don't find it any worse than the world of media (that the Globe and Mail paid Stephen Gordon more than me still burns), or the world of academic administration. But it could be better – and the power to change it lies within every one of us.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
In general, may I say from an outsider’s perspective that I’m impressed how well economists can discuss this issue, and maintain the use of the analytical tools (e.g. the idea of social phenomena that are not the product of anyone’s direct intention) which are key to the discipline’s brilliance.
I’d hypothesise that this might just be a function of Canadian manners and level-headedness, but that would be a stereotype, and these sorts of debates make one conscious of one’s stereotyping!
There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women, Frances.
Seriously: someone draws much-need social-media attention to the rampant sexism in our discipline, and it irks you?
And then to go on to lamely trivialize the issue, because preferences or something… But then “F*** You, I Got Mine,” right?
@Nick Rowe: Your apologizing of Robin Hanson’s sexism is quite sexist in itself. It’s rather disappointing.
@Nick Rowe
Your mention of “gentle genocide” reminded me of that song. I thought that quoting it might lighten the mood a bit. Guess not, eh? 😦
I have been watching the comments on this posting, and debating whether or not to add to them – and, if so, what to say. CM’s comments sparked this attempt. I’m not sure how to date my life as an economist – probably my first attendance at the Canadian annual meetings in 1974 (gasp!). Since then I have completed my MA and my PhD at different schools, worked at the Bank of Canada, the Library of Parliament, and taught at 5 different universities. Like every other female economist I know, I
ve dealt with sexual harassment; luckily, Ive had supporters along the way so it has never been severe. I’ve fought for tenure, as have several other female economists I know. Do I see “rampant sexism” within the discipline? N0: if it were there, it would be much easier to counter. Do I see Frances as an apologist? No: I completely agree with her that men and women with equal publication records would be treated equally at tenure (I think this is what she said). Are males and females equally supported in the pre-tenure period so that their records are equal at decision-time? I’m skeptical, but am not sure what to point to as the differences. And I believe things have improved dramatically over my career, starting from a fairly low point. But then: we now have seven full-time women in our department (out of..22?), and this seems like a high percentage to me, so we clearly have a ways to go. I think CWEN is a very useful group. I am pleased and impressed by the number of male colleagues I see now who are as vocal against blatant sexism as many women are, even though some others either don’t see it, don`t see it as a problem, or still practice it. Like Frances, I find that I sometimes have little tolerance for the degree of combativeness I observe in many discussions between economists; although I have spent time with sociologists (to pick up on her example) I find myself returning to economists for what I find to be more explicitly logical arguments. But I walked out of a meeting in my department yesterday because I found the discussion becoming too heated for my taste (and the time I had).This post is rambling, and I apologize for that.
CM: “Seriously: someone draws much-need social-media attention to the rampant sexism in our discipline, and it irks you?”
CM, Noah offers up as an example of sexism some loony that hardly anyone takes seriously. A typical male economist reading Noah’s post could say “I’m not that kind of a loony, I think that kind of stuff is terrible” and then go on with life as usual – citing great male economists in their papers, inviting prominent male economists to be keynote speakers, seeing female-dominated fields of economics as “softer” and “less rigorous” than more male fields.
Noah’s proposed solution – that the AEA do something – was tried by John Kenneth Galbraith when he was president of the AEA many decades ago. The AEA did do something – formed CSWEP – and it’s made a difference. But there are very serious limits on what professional associations can achieve.
Is a flawed diagnosis and a pretty inadequate solution better than nothing? I’m not convinced.
Linda, thank you for this, you’re my feminist inner voice – when I write something I always think “what would Linda say?” I wasn’t at all sure you were going to like this one!
Min: it did lighten my mood a little. Thanks!
CM: I am trying hard, and failing, to contain my anger at those who would silence and dismiss the concerns of men. Somewhere reading this is a man who has learned that the son or daughter he loved and cherished and supported is not his own, and that their whole relationship is built on a lie. And that if he says anything about how much this hurts he will be shamed and ridiculed. And that some people have the nerve to say that it is offensive even to compare this to rape. And you have the bloody nerve to say that I am sexist? And that Frances is sexist! Go to hell.
@Nick: with all due respect to your feelings, and that of others (men and women), I find the attention paid to Hanson’s blog post a bit of a “crosstown bus” in this thread. I too find his choice of words inappropriate (yes, I read his post); I have many other examples I could bring up that I also find inappropriate – but I believe that is beside the point. How are we to deal with the sexism that still exists in the discipline?
I agree with Linda, I’m going to close the comments shortly because I don’t think this is helpful.
Before I do…
CM (and anyone else): Suppose I was president of the Canadian Economics Association – which means I organize the program for the annual conference one year, and have considerable say in the direction of the organization for four years. What three things would you have me do? Be specific, give details and names. So not “invite a prominent female economist to give the Purvis lecture”. Saying that is just cheap talk. Who should I invite? To do what? No cheap talk about mentoring, either – give me suggestions on how to reach the groups that really struggle in the job market, i.e. minority women and men, and people who don’t come from the kind of social class that allows them to be perfectly comfortable ordering dinner in a fancy restaurant.
I’d like to avoid that special place you have in mind for me.
Are there explicit criteria for the Purvis lecture -field, etc? How about Nicole Fortin?
One last comment to everyone who believes, like Noah, that the sciences, or anything else, is a “feminist nirvana” compared to economics: I would seriously suggest that you get out a little more.
I’ve spent the last year and five months (not that anyone’s counting) as an academic administrator, doing Nick’s old job as Associate Dean. For me, personally, this world filled with female competition, where how you dress matters, where people communicate with subtle hints rather than directly and openly, where people assume you’re an administrator therefore at their beck and call – well, economics is looking more like a feminist nirvana every day.
The world contains deep, ingrained and systemic gender biases. Economics is part of the world, not something unique and different.
Nicole would be good. I don’t know if she’s done it already. I was thinking of Siwan Anderson.
“The world contains deep, ingrained and systemic gender biases. Economics is part of the world, not something unique and different.” Yes.
Siwan Anderson would be good, too.
I need to go back to making up exams! But…Frances, you asked for ideas: perhaps a fund to help junior scholars buy citations? See http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2014/11/selling-the-starred-footnote.html (I can’t see how to set the link.) This is tagged as satire, by the way.
One problem with Hanson was that his post should have been in a philosophy or ethics exam. My colleagues here agree that it would have been a maybe controversila but excellent question for this term finals in”Ethics and society.” But it did not belong inan economics blog…
Another suggestion – from astronomy(?):
link
[edited to add the link – SG]
Linda – see here for how to insert hyperlinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XodRIfnMq5o. I’ll put it in if I have time.
Frances,
I’m glad I got to reply before you closed the comments section. I agree this is getting too emotional for everyone involved.
All I can say is, I really hope at some point you take a wholehearted, hard second look at your reading of Ginther and Kahn. Publically at least, you mischaracterized the substantive findings of their work and the preponderance of evidence with red herrings (“they never used the word sexism”), pick-and-choose and so forth. And that’s OK I guess for a silly Internet shouting match, but I really hope you do not end up with the wrong prior about their work and its significance. Equity aside, the fact is there is a puzzle going on of persistent, unaccounted gender differences in econ that do not appear in other fields (including other social sciences). This is important.
As of policy solutions, who really knows. I guess it’s hard when we can’t even agree on whether gender parity should be a goal in the first place. Maybe that could be a start. All I know is, causal inference aside, since the time CSWEP was formed, other disciplines have progressed much further than econ towards gender parity. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.