By discriminating against women and underrepresented minority groups, the economics profession perpetuates a hidden bias in data collection and analysis that pervades many important areas of policymaking. It should be clear by now that market forces alone will not solve the discipline’s diversity problem.
BOSTON – Although economics uses mathematical models and machine-learning techniques, it is still a social science. But compared to most other disciplines, the profession does not even come close to representing the societies we live in. In the United States, women received only 32% of US PhD degrees in economics in 2018, compared to 57% in other social sciences and 41% of doctorates in science and engineering. Worse still, black and Hispanic economists accounted for just 3.7% of newly minted economics PhDs – considerably lower than their combined share of doctorates in other social sciences (14%) and in science and engineering (8%).
BOSTON – Although economics uses mathematical models and machine-learning techniques, it is still a social science. But compared to most other disciplines, the profession does not even come close to representing the societies we live in. In the United States, women received only 32% of US PhD degrees in economics in 2018, compared to 57% in other social sciences and 41% of doctorates in science and engineering. Worse still, black and Hispanic economists accounted for just 3.7% of newly minted economics PhDs – considerably lower than their combined share of doctorates in other social sciences (14%) and in science and engineering (8%).