University of Arizona
To study gender differences in the choice of subfield specialization among academic economists
Women economists cluster more in certain subfields (e.g., labor, health, public economics) than in others (e.g., macro, theory, or international trade). This grant funds work by labor economists Ron Oaxaca and Eva Sierminska to analyze this gendered difference in career choices among professional economists. Rigorously analyzing why men and women make career decisions differently requires holding unchanged as many factors as possible besides gender. Focusing on career choices in graduate school allows just that. Ph.D. candidates in the same program, for example, interact with the same group of professors and advisors, expect similar sets of potential salaries, and face the same specialization options. Grant funds are supporting the creation of a public use dataset, analysis of that dataset, development of a website about the project, and the production of two research articles and a less technical policy brief reporting the results of the analysis.