Gender imbalance in economics undergraduates

Claudia Goldin (the 2023 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and Tatyana Avilova have just published a paper exploring reasons for the high male:female ratio among US economics undergraduate students.

Some of the reasons that they identify for the paucity of female students include:

• A lack of understanding of the broader aspects of economics. For example, many incoming undergraduates think that economics is mostly finance-related, rather than covering aspects such as "economic development, health, education, inequality, economic history, and population change".
• "Underrepresentation can feed on itself" - if students see fewer female economists and economics students, this could put them off studying the subject.

I think one of the most interesting hypotheses that Goldin and Avilova state is that "women’s greater sensitivity to feedback from grades appears to be an important factor that has led many to exit the field after taking the principles sequence, even when they have the same grades as men who remain with the major". They go on to explain that "43 percent of the male students who received an A in the introductory course eventually majored in economics and 41 percent of the female students did. But 40 percent of the men who received a B+ eventually majored in economics, whereas 26 percent of the women did". In other words, grading and feedback really mattered at an early stage.

Goldin and Avilova say "It is possible that female students work harder in subjects at which they excel (or are told they excel), whereas male students take subjects they know will eventually benefit them. Female students may seek more comfort in their selection of a major, whereas male students stick with their goal even if they do poorly. Another possibility is that female students consider their grade in an introductory course to be an indicator of their future success in the discipline, whereas male students do not interpret it as such."

I, for one, really hope that they follow through with research on their hypotheses!

Either way, their paper also outlines some interventions that have taken place in various institutions, so it could be worth you taking a closer look to see what they've identified as working or not working.