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The RBA Governor may be a woman, but in economics men still rule

Role models - Treasury’s Jenny Wilkinson, Reserve Bank of Australia’s Michele Bullock ,and Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers / The Australian
Role models - Treasury’s Jenny Wilkinson, Reserve Bank of Australia’s Michele Bullock ,and Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers / The Australian

Back in 2017 I gave a speech at the ACT launch of the Women in Economics Network highlighting that outright bias in hiring, promotions or publication decisions persisted in academic economics but not in other STEM fields.

Since then, more academic papers have shown the same divide.

Women in economics are less likely to be promoted even after controlling for publications, citations, grants and grant dollars.

The same bias does not occur in other STEM fields, even technical ones such as mathematics and statistics. The bias is worse in economics departments than for economists working in other departments. There are several ways this bias turns up. Female-authored papers in economics are held to higher drafting standards. This does not come from a female taste for better writing: the author who discovered this bias, Erin Hengel, showed that the higher standards were imposed during the review phase early in women’s careers and then internalised into their initial drafts later in their careers.

 

Luci Ellis is chief economist at Westpac Banking Group. Previously she was the former assistant governor and senior economist with the Reserve Bank. Jane Dempster/The Australian.
Luci Ellis is chief economist at Westpac Banking Group. Previously she was the former assistant governor and senior economist with the Reserve Bank. Jane Dempster/The Australian.

Female-authored papers also spend longer in review. Economics journal articles written by women end up being higher quality on average as a result; their papers are cited more often than those written by men.

Again, this does not occur in other STEM fields but is specific to economics. And by being held to a higher standard, women in academic economics must spend more time polishing old work and end up appearing less productive in terms of the number of publications. Even if you manage to get published, you get less credit.

Recent research by Heather Sarsons and her colleagues showed female economists did not get the same boost to their probability of future promotion as men did from a publication if the paper was co-authored and especially if it was co-authored with men. It is also harder for women to get their research seen and acknowledged by their peers.

Research shows women and other minorities are less likely to be invited as speakers in seminars. If you do get into the seminar room, you will be interrupted more often than men.

What accounts for this bias? Because other STEM fields do not display the same bias, we can rule out those explanations based on women being less interested in maths or research, or less inclined to deal with intellectually combative environments. If they were the reasons, you’d see the same issues across fields and in more-technical fields than economics, such as physics.

We also can rule out explanations based on women being less confident or less inclined to apply for promotion. Issues such as child-rearing and career breaks also cannot explain a problem specific to economics.

If there is a role-model effect, then maybe the shift in the past three years in Australia will help: the Reserve Bank governor, the secretary of Treasury, the head of the Productivity Commission and 50 per cent of the chief economists of the big four banks are all female. Three years ago, none of these roles was held by women. A lack of role models does not explain the biases against female academics in hiring, promotion and publication, however.

One issue may be that unfair attributions of credit can be obscured behind alphabetically ordered author lists on papers. In most sciences, authors are listed in the order of their contribution, but not in economics.

Unlike some other STEM fields, women in economics also have more options outside academia. Central banks, think tanks and international organisations all offer research-oriented roles so it may be that academic economics has been able to remain more sexist than other fields because women have more of an option to leave rather than fight bias.

How can this be fixed? Greater role modelling and female-specific networks may help. So may presenting economics to be more appealing to both male and female students.

I suggest this bias is allowed to continue because in academia there are no consequences for leaving talent on the table by underrating female candidates and overrating male ones. In the private sector, doing that would hurt the bottom line and boards would not stand for managements holding back top talent. Taking a leaf from the private sector, universities could consider some accountability measures.

Senior leaders in academic economics departments need to impose negative consequences on colleagues for sexist hostility in seminars. Universities need to track metrics on career progression and hold departmental leaders accountable if they do not pursue culture change. Publishers could track publishing lags and decisions, and replace journal editors who display bias.

It is good to see women running key agencies but if we are to attract more girls to economics careers without them facing unfair bias, we need accountable leaders.

Luci Ellis is chief economist, Westpac Banking Group. This is her opinion and does not represent the opinions of Westpac or any part of it.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/the-rba-governor-may-be-a-woman-but-in-economics-men-still-rule/news-story/661cb2e2a2aeaf05cdde5531bc3b470d