The Gender Balance of Academic Economics in the UK

Executive summary: Women make up approximately 30% of the research/PhD students, 15% of the lecturers, 10% of the readers/senior lecturers and 5% of the professors. Males in standard full-time academic jobs are twice as likely to be at a senior level (above lecturer) than women (46% compared to 23%). There are few part-time jobs in standard academia and these jobs are dominated by men. It will take some 10 years for the relative stock of female permanent lecturers to equal the proportion (27%) of women in the inflows to that grade. Inflows via new hires into the senior grades were not high enough to have a significant impact on the relative stocks of females at the more senior level. Research-only jobs make up 15% of all full-time academic jobs, most are fixed-term. Research-only jobs are dominated by males although to a lesser extent than occurs in standard full-time academic jobs (some 70% male). Women make up the majority of the very few part-time research-only jobs (26 of 48 jobs). Men are twice as likely to occur in senior level research-only jobs than women. Both men and women are twice as likely to be at senior levels if they work in standard academic jobs than in research-only jobs. There is little difference in the relative position of female academics between new universities, old universities, departments with 4 and above RAE rankings, and those ranked 3 or below. There are 329 women currently enrolled in full-time research/PhD degrees, there are 312 women currently employed full-time in academia. 30% of the PhD students are from the UK; 27% of the females and 32% of the males. Some 80% of the PhD students are enrolled in the 4 or 5 RAE ranked departments: this proportion is the same for males and females. The majority of recent PhD graduates have not taken employment in standard academic jobs in the UK - more so for women than men.Gender; academic; economics; explanations;

Royal Economic Society Women’s Committee Survey on the Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Economics 2008

This report describes the data from the seventh, 2008, survey of gender and ethnic balance amongst academic economists in CHUDE membership departments in UK universities.

The Gender Pay Gap for Private Sector Employees in Canada and Britain

This paper uses British and Canadian linked employer-employee data to investigate the importance of the workplace for the gender wage gap. Implementing a novel decomposition approach, we find substantial unexplained wage gaps in the private sector of both countries. Whilst this wage differential is partially offset by women, on average, receiving a workplace specific return which is relatively higher than that paid to men, a substantial and significant unexplained within workplace wage gap remains which is considerably higher in Britain than in Canada. The results are consistent with a prima facie argument that country-specific factors, such as the wage setting environment, are important determinants in explaining the relative size of the gender wage gap.

Family-Friendly Work Practices in Britain: Availability and Awareness.

We use linked data on over 20,000 individuals and almost 1,500 workplaces from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998 to analyze the perceived and actual availability of six major family-friendly work practices amongst British employees. We find a low base rate of actual availability, a lower rate of perceived availability, and evidence that accurate awareness of availability is further limited. We identify a range of individual worker and workplaces characteristics that are associated with greater perceived availability and typically also to awareness.

Aspirations, Expectations and Education Outcomes for Children in Britain: Considering Relative Measures of Family Efficiency

We apply the distance function methodology to the analysis of household production functions. In particular, the family’s ability to efficiently and simultaneously generate a dual education (mathematics and reading) output for their child subject to multiple, constrained input availability is addressed. A stochastic production frontier model is estimated and significant shortfalls from the productive ideal are established, indicating that there is substantial scope for improvement in the production of childhood education outcomes amongst British families. There is also substantial variation across families in the efficiency of their production. Implementing a conditional mean model, inefficiency is shown to be strongly related to both family and child-centric variables and, in particular, to the educational aspirations of the parents for their child.childhood education, family, performance, production efficiency, aspirations, expectations

Royal Economic Society Women’s Committee Survey on the Gender and Ethnic Balance of Academic Economics 2010

This report describes the data from the eighth, 2010, survey of gender and ethnic balance amongst academic economists in CHUDE membership departments in UK universities.gender ethnic economics Women's Committee

The Gender Earnings Gap in Britain

The earnings gap between male and female employees is substantial and persistent. Using new data for Britain, this paper shows that an important contribution to this gap is made by the workplace in which the employee works. Evidence for workplace and occupational segregation as partial explanations of the earnings gap is presented. Having allowed also for individual worker characteristics there remains a substantial within-workplace and within-occupation gender earnings gap. The contribution of these factors, as well as the earnings gap itself, differ significantly across sectors of the labour market. The relative unimportance of occupational segregation and the large remaining gender earnings gap suggest that stronger enforcement of Equal Pay legislation is likely to be the most appropriate policy response.Gender earnings; wage-gap; fixed-effects; segregation