Women in economics

A fine column from my colleague Miles Kimball and a (necessarily) anonymous co-author on the challenges associated with being a woman in economics. My own estimate of the empirical importance of these issues for current cohorts has increased a lot over the past couple of years.

I do think the article omits one possible action item, which is that female economists in some cases could be a lot more supportive of each other than they are at present.

Finally, I would add that I have huge respect for the women who were early movers into economics, e.g. Judy Thornton, from whom I took courses as an undergraduate at Washington, and Marjorie McElroy at Duke, whom I have gotten to know at conferences and seminar visits over the years. To the extent that women in current cohorts have smaller, but not necessarily small, challenges to face, it is in good part due to the hard work of predecessors like these.