A Summary of “Does Economics Make You Sexist?”

This blog is inspired by the seminar on the paper “Does Economics Make You Sexist” by Valentina A.Paredes, M.Daniele Paserman, Francisco Pino.

On April 1, 2021, Professor Daniele Paserman starts his talk for the BU Undergraduate Women in Economics and Undergraduate Economic Association department with the following quotation:

"If women have a comparative advantage over men in the household sector when they make the same investments in human capital, an efficient household with both sexes would allocate the time of women mainly to the household sector and the time of men mainly to the market sector. — Gary Becker, A Treatise on the Family (1991 [1981])

Then, he asks what students thought of this statement providing two options: Is the statement a neutral, mathematical statement reflecting a logical conclusion from a given assumption, or does this statement reveal an economist's hidden bias that uses math to promote specific social order?

While most of the BU students in the seminar chose the second option, Professor Paserman’s experience on Twitter revealed that economists are less likely to claim bias in their statements than non-economist voters. With 1900 votes and 68% voting that the statement was biased, the ratio of biased and neutral was about 2:1 among non-economists and closer to 3.5:1 for economists. Thus, such a result leads to the main question of Professor Paserman’s presentation: “Does Economics Make You Sexist.”

Before developing the topic, Professor Paserman clarifies his interchangeable use of the term sexism and gender biases, defining the terms as a “set of attitudes and beliefs [that make one] more likely to support policies that do not favor women in market economy.”

These attitudes are well documented in the field of Economy. “Women in economics are less likely to be promoted, even conditional on productivity (Ginther and Kahn, 2004, 2014); male economists are less likely, relative to other fields, to exhibit a women preference in a hypothetical hiring scenario (Williams and Ceci, 2015); women receive less credit for co-authorship (Sarsons, 2017); female-authored papers in top economics journals are held to higher standards and go through a longer process of peer review (Hengel, 2017; Card, DellaVigna, Funk, and Iriberri, 2020); female instructors in economics receive lower teacher evaluations (Boring, 2017; Mengel, Sauermann, and Zölitz, 2019); women are underrepresented in principles of economics textbooks (Stevenson and Zlotnik, 2018); and women face explicit hostility in an anonymous online forum with academic and professional purposes (Wu, 2018).” [“Does Economics Make You Sexist?”]

According to a poll conducted by the American Economic Association on the question of “Have you personally experience discrimination or unfair treatment,” singificanctly higher number of women responded positivly compared to men (Figure 1).

What causes such gender bias? First, the selection story proposes that economics attracts individuals with more traditional gender roles. The perception of Economics as a high paying field might appeal to more conservative individuals accepting the existing social structure of a breadwinner. Second, the treatment hypothesis claims that the exposure to economics leads to more gender bias. The small number of female faculty and students relative to other fields lead to less encounters with women which could mitigate gender biases; The market oriented views about economic policies identify more with the right on social as well as economic issues, and in turn, adapt student to other positions of rights on social issues such as gender roles. Finally, the culprit discipline story presents the issue within the discipline itself. The way in which economics are thought as market efficient contributes to gender biases. The theory of market efficiency suggest that gender cannot be due to discrimination but market preference. Economists such as Gerry Bakers claim that in competitive markets, discimination can occur in the long run as it will be “weeded out by competitive forces.” Such theory of comparative advantage also applied to the household sphere as shown in the opening quotation.

The paper evaluated these theories among 3700 Chile University students in both economics and other fields and asked a battery of questions on explicit and implicit biases. Through a Difference- in- Difference (DiD) methodology, the research compared economic students and students from other fields, and first year students against students in year 2 and above.

Before diving into the result, it is important to note that Chile is among the countries close to the OECD “average term of gender aptitudes.” According to the World Value Survey, 26% of students under 25 responded yes to the question “When the mother worlds for pay, children suffer,” positioning Chile in the middle grounds regarding gender bias. (Figure 2).

Through the observations shown in the presentation and lecture, Professor Paserman summarises that Economics students are somewhat slightly more biased than non-economics students upon entry; This gap however substantially increases among students in year 2 and above on several of the measures and the overall scores; The DiD coefficient is about ⅙ and ¼ of raw male and female differential and it tends to be significant for men; The results are not driven by one major - a discussion skipped due to a lack of time.

Professor Parsemen proceeds by explaining that the results hint at something that might have happened in the first year. Whereas further exposure to economic courses from year 2 and above does not lead to significant differences, there is a noticeable jump between year one and year two shows. Political ideology seems to explain almost all of the ideologies in the difference of gender bias for year one, but not for any of the increase in the gap in year 2 and afterwards.

Furthermore, the results also show that for the whole sample, and particularly for women, the effect of exposure to economics is larger for students who had not been exposed to female instructors. Having a larger share of female peers also decreases gender bias, particularly noticeable among female students. Whereas for male students, the interaction with the share of female students is negative but in a statistically insignificant magnitude.

Finally, findings show that Economics students are more gender-biased than students in other fields. Some might be selection - see more on paper, but there is consistent evidence of a treatment effect for men; The difference in political ideology explains the gap at entry, but not the increase with exposure; And female interaction can attenuate some of the biases.

So what? Why should we care? You may ask. According to Professor Paserman, men and women might share different interests in topics and questions. Consequently, the presence of gender biases and women’s representation in economics affect the types of questions in research and policies debated and enacted.

Given the significance of the matter, the paper presents the following policy takeaways. First, as the changes occur mostly during the first year of exposure to economics, teaching introductory economics may be where academic economists have the largest policy impact. When teaching these courses, one must acknowledge the hidden and not so hidden biases embedded in the material when teaching and share the nuances with students. Second, more female faculty in the field of economics could moderate the effect. Third, if gender biases result from selection, it should lead to further research on why it attracts more “these types of individuals” rather than absolve the discipline.

Whereas this blog could not cover the large amount of details of data and analysis on the topic, the paper and presentation on “Does Economics Make You Sexist” provide a far deeper discussion on the findings on the effect of economics on gender biases and its potential implications on the rise of populism in the 21st century.

The prominence of gender discrimination in economics, even among students in the earliest stages clearly indicates the need for further research such as the paper “Does Economics Make You Sexist.” Finding the root causes and origins of gender bias leads us a step closer to eliminating gender discriminatory practices and normalizing statements such as the opening quotation.