Economic Education Events

State of Women in Economics

May 6, 2021

Virtual

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is hosting two programs to spotlight demographic trends of women in the economics profession and provide a forum to discuss the implications of these trends. The Women in Economics webinars will feature women from various career fields with education backgrounds in economics to demonstrate how a degree in economics can translate into a professional opportunity.

This two-hour program for the general public will include conversations focusing on the need for women to enter the field of economics and the barriers to entry they face.

Overview

According to a 2018 study by the American Economics Association, women made up nearly 33 percent of all PhD economics graduates. The share of female economists employed has been roughly flat at around 24 percent since 2013, according to “Women in Economics: Stalled Progress” in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2019.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in 2020, "It’s fair to acknowledge that there’s been a lot of pain and injustice and unfair treatment that women have experienced in the workplace, not just among economists. And at the Fed, it’s been going on for far too long.”

Former Fed Chair and current Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a 2019 speech, “[The lack of diversity] also skews the field’s viewpoint and diminishes its breadth. [It also] harms the field because it wastes talent.” The Dallas Fed realizes that this lack of women in economics can lead to a lack of diversity in leadership, which affects how decisions are made in the workplace.