Is there a gender hiring gap in academic economics? Evidence from a network analysis.

Andreas Orland,Max Padubrin

doi:10.1098/rsos.210717

Andreas Orland, Max Padubrin

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210717

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Abstract

We collect a network dataset of tenured economics faculty in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. We rank the 100 institutions included with a minimum violation ranking. This ranking is positively and significantly correlated with the Times Higher Education ranking of economics institutions. According to the network ranking, individuals on average go down about 23 ranks from their doctoral institution to their employing institution. While the share of females in our dataset is only 15%, we do not observe a significant gender hiring gap (a difference in rank changes between male and female faculty). We conduct a robustness check with the Handelsblatt and the Times Higher Education ranking. According to these rankings, individuals on average go down only about two ranks. We do not observe a significant gender hiring gap using these two rankings (although the dataset underlying this analysis is small and these estimates are likely to be noisy). Finally, we discuss the limitations of the network ranking in our context.

Highlights

Various gender gaps have been documented among academic economists
While we find that faculty step down about 23 ranks on average when we use our network data, we do not find a significant gender hiring gap
We use a node to account for the individuals that come with a PhD from outside AT/CH/DE into our network

Summary

Introduction

Various gender gaps have been documented among academic economists. Female economists earn less than their male colleagues [1,2] and are less likely to receive tenure and to be promoted to full professor [3]. The finding that, in economics, male faculty members evaluate (hypothetical) female candidates less favorably for tenure-track assistant professor positions than (both male and female) faculty members from three other fields might be related to this [4]. The fact that the share of females at each stage of career (from graduate school to full professor) decreases is known as the ‘leaky pipeline’ [5,6].

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