Women in economics: What data from top universities reveal about gender equity

In the field of economics, on average, women tend to produce fewer research articles and be cited less often than men. But this appears to be changing. A newly compiled dataset about scholars at top universities around the world helps us identify where individual gender gaps exist.

I consider myself lucky to have studied with—and to now be working alongside—so many intelligent women economists. But my experience is quite different from that of many women who entered the field before me. Economics has long been dominated by men, and progress toward gender parity has been steady but slow. Even today, women remain under-represented in economics.

When we compare men and women on an individual level, we find that not all gaps in the field of economics have closed. This is what my colleagues and I found when looking at economic scholars at top-tier universities around the world. We analyzed the scholars’ research outputs—such as articles in peer-reviewed journals and working papers—as well as citations of their work in other economists’ research.

Our results suggest that closing these gaps may take time. But anyone looking for a silver lining can find it in our data; one must simply look closely enough.

The average woman in economics produces fewer articles and is cited less often than her male counterpart

My colleagues and I built a unique dataset by scraping website information about all economics faculty members from the top 50 universities worldwide—including 2 in Canada—who also had a Google Scholar profile. This allowed us to compare both men’s and women’s individual outputs and their impacts on other research through simple and transparent measures. Our sample contained 1,718 full-time, permanent economics professors, of which about 360—or 21%—were women.

Our results show that the average woman economist in our dataset produced 45% fewer articles and received around 20% fewer citations per article than the average male economist (Chart 1).

These gaps partly reflect the fact that the average woman economic scholar is much more junior than the average male economic scholar. In our dataset, women represent 26% of assistant professors but just 15% of full professors.

Publication gaps are larger among more senior scholars

A clear pattern emerges in the data when looking at researchers at different stages of their careers. Within the junior ranks, especially assistant professors, publication gaps between individual scholars are small to nonexistent. The average woman scholar starting her academic career today produces a similar number of articles as her male peer at the same career stage (Chart 2). She also experiences comparable rates of citations per article produced (Chart 3).

In contrast, substantial gender disparities are visible among the ranks of senior academics such as full professors. The average woman full professor produces about 30% fewer articles than the average man of the same rank (Chart 2), although each article receives about the same number of citations (Chart 3).

Therefore, women’s lower average article output appears to be due to two factors:

• the more junior status of women, on average
• the fact that more-senior female academics produce fewer articles than their male counterparts

Women and men entering the profession of economics today perform much more similarly to each other than previous cohorts did. And looking at research output data by university department may give us a clue about why this change has occurred.

The larger the ratio of women to men in a department, the smaller the output and citation gaps

Analyzing department-level data yields particularly revealing results. In departments approaching gender parity, women and men perform similarly in terms of the number of articles produced and citations received. This pattern suggests a critical-mass effect, where gaps in individual output and citations appear to close faster once women make up a significant share of faculty members. Reaching a critical mass can shift norms, strengthen collaboration networks and influence how research is evaluated and recognized.

The results at the department level stand in stark contrast to patterns observed across the subfields in economics. Gaps in individual output and citations are remarkably similar across numerous areas, even though women are more represented in subfields such as microeconomics, labour economics and family economics and less so in areas like macroeconomics and finance.

These findings suggest that what matters most is women’s representation in a given economics department rather than in the profession at large or even within subfields. This interpretation is in line with a large body of research emphasizing the role of professional networks and mentoring in career advancement. The careers of women in economics tend to gain momentum when women obtain more agency through collaboration.

What this all means

The silver lining in all of this is that professional women economists today are working on a more level playing field than those who entered economics in the past. If these trends are sustained, the discipline could see meaningful convergence over time.

But increasing the number of women in economics is not enough on its own to expand women’s contributions to and impacts on economic research. Maintaining progress depends on creating opportunities for collaboration for women in the field. Building such a culture can help broaden the range of perspectives that inform economic analysis and policy advice, which are both central to the Bank of Canada’s mandate.

Find out more