What Can UWE Do for Economics?

摘要

Women do not major in economics to the same degree as men. In fact, the fraction of economics majors who are female is lower than in chemistry, mathematics, and statistics. In fields that are even more male-dominated than economics, such as engineering, the fraction of majors who are female has increased in the past decades. But the fraction in economics has not budged in the last 25 years or more. The Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE) project seeks to uncover why women do not major in economics to the same degree as men and what can be done to change that.I. Economics Majors by GenderNationwide today, there are almost three males for every female economics major, expressed relative to their numbers as degree recipients (generally BA but also BS). We term that statistic the "conversion rate," which is deflated or scaled by the number of degree recipients since women outnumber men as undergraduates. The average from 2011-2015 was 2.9 among all institutions, 2.3 among the 100 top-ranked universities (public and private), and 2.6 for the 100 top-ranked liberal arts colleges.