Does Economics Have a Gender?

Christina Jonung () and Ann-Charlotte Stahlberg ()
Additional contact information
Ann-Charlotte Stahlberg: Swedish Institute for Social Research

Econ Journal Watch, 2009, vol. 6, issue 1, pages 60-72

Abstract: We address the issues raised by commentators on our paper in the symposium “Why few women in economics.” The commentators suggest that economics is gendered, a male subject reflecting basic differences in men’s and women’s life preferences and abilities. We find that, while less schooling in mathematics historically may be related to the relative scarcity of women in economics and the natural sciences, today women’s and men’s mathematical skills are rapidly approaching each other. Experimental economics have found gender differences in preferences in risk taking, competitiveness, and social preferences which may deter women from entering academic fields with an overwhelming majority of men. In addition, the internal academic culture may have developed to adjust to a traditional male lifestyle. Adding everything up, women economists may find their comparative advantage to lie outside the universities.

Keywords: economics; women; gender; gender balance; career advancement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J7 A11 A14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aier.org/aier/publications/ejw_ia_jan09_jonung.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ejw:volone:200960-72

Access Statistics for this article

Econ Journal Watch is edited by Daniel Klein

More articles in Econ Journal Watch from Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Series data maintained by Kevin Rollins ().