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  4. Preliminary Program
  5. Diversity in the Labor Market
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Diversity in the Labor Market

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)

Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Eva Sierminska, LISER

Gender Differences in Field of Specialization and Placement Outcomes among Ph.D. in Economics

Nicole Fortin
,
University of British Columbia
Thomas Lemieux
,
University of British Columbia
Marit Rehavi
,
University of British Columbia

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of gender differences in field of specialization among Ph.D. candidates on job placement, both academic and non-academic. Gender differences in academic disciplines and fields of specialization account for at least a quarter of the gender gap in professorial salaries. We analyze the placement of nearly 7,000 Economics Ph.D. graduates from 82 North-American institutions ranked among the top 200 in RePec Rankings who have sought employment through Econ Job Market (EJM) between 2010 and 2017. By using this sample, we are able to cross-reference the self-declared field of specialization on EJM with the standardized information available in the annual JEL list of Ph.D. graduates. Our placement outcomes have been collected from the web search of Ph.D. graduates and corroborated with the placement lists available for most (60 out of 82) institutions under study. We differentiate placements as Assistant Professors (by various tiers of school rankings), teaching stream academic positions, post-docs, and non-academic positions. Gender differences are the largest and most significant for Assistant Professors positions, filled by 52.7% of men vs. 49% of women. Conversely, 10% of women vs. 8.8% of men accept post-doctoral positions and 32.2% of women vs. 29.5% of men are in non-academic positions. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions of gender differences in placement outcomes show that 30% to 60% of the female disadvantage in Assistant-Professor positions is accounted for by gender differences in either fields of specialization, depending of the reference group. The ranking of institutions where Ph.D. graduates obtained their degree is also an important determinant of male-female differences in placement. The contribution of gender differences in degree institutions to the male advantage in upper-tier Assistant-Professors positions is about twice as large as the contribution of fields of specialization. Self-declared fields of specialization account for 85% to 94%

Does Mentoring Increase the Collaboration Networks Of Female Economists? An Evaluation of the CeMENT Randomized Trial

Donna Ginther
,
University of Kansas
Rina Na
,
University of Kansas

Abstract

Many researchers argue that lower research productivity by female economists contributes to the underrepresentation of women in academic economics. The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) of the American Economics Association (AEA) established the CeMENT mentoring workshop to support women in research careers. CeMENT is a randomized controlled trial that also may contribute to an exogenous change in professional networks. We examine whether the CeMENT workshop affected the number of publications and coauthors of treated women. Our results show that treated women publish more papers and add three additional coauthors. Once we control for coauthors, the treatment effect is reduced but remains significant. Our research suggest that the CeMENT workshop provided knowledge and advice that led to larger collaboration networks, additional papers, and more citations.

Field Specializations among Beginning Economists: Are There Gender Differences?

Eva Sierminska
,
LISER
Ronald L. Oaxaca
,
University of Arizona

Abstract

We examine the process that underlies the choice of field specialization among beginning economists. Our contribution is to understand what is driving gender segregation in fields of economic specialization by looking at doctoral field specializations.
The prevailing impression is that the proportion of women economists across field specialties declines with the degree of theoretical abstraction in the specialty areas. We investigate the extent to which this is the case. Are gender differences in fields driven by salaries and academic employment, or are non-economic factors the explanation? Adding field specific monetary components (salaries) and expected probabilities of academic employment to our analysis is a novel aspect of this research. We model the decision of field specialization within a random utility framework that can accommodate both multi-field and primary field specialization approaches. The random utility framework leads to field specific binary logit equations in the multi-field context and to a conditional logit/ multinomial logit model in the primary field setting.
Discussant(s)
Yolanda Pena-Boquete
,
AYeconomics
Karen Mumford
,
University of York
Dominique Meurs
,
Nanterre University
JEL Classifications
  • J1 - Demographic Economics