Women in economics: progress, challenges and perspectives

Summary

Podcast Summary:

LSE Public Lectures and Events — "Women in Economics: Progress, Challenges and Perspectives"
Date: December 8, 2025
Host: London School of Economics and Political Science
Panelists: Claire (Deputy Governor, Bank of England), Janet (Chief Economist at HSBC), Almudena (LSE/CEP), plus Chair and Audience

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the state of women in economics: their representation, the challenges and dynamics affecting their careers, and ongoing efforts to change the landscape. Using statistics, lived experiences, and current research, the panel explores why diversity—especially gender diversity—is essential for the profession, how barriers persist at each stage, and what practical and cultural changes are needed for greater equality and impact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current State of Women in Economics

• Leaky Pipeline:
  • At entry into academia: 36.5% are women lecturers.
  • Drops to 26.3% at senior lecturer/reader level.
  • Only 18% at professorial level.
  • "Economics does indeed need women and diversity more generally." (B, 00:52)
• Comparison with Other Fields:
  • Economics' gender imbalance resembles that of maths and physical sciences, not other social sciences.
  • Even outside academia (government, central banks), representation is better but far from parity.
• Trends Are Stagnant:
  • Numbers have been largely unchanged over the last decade, both in undergraduate and senior academic representation.
  • "Different reports are showing very, very stable numbers over time. So things are not necessarily moving." (B, 07:49)
• International Comparison:
  • Leaky pipeline is a global issue, not UK-specific.

2. Why Does Economics Need Women?

• Economic Efficiency:
  • "Economics is all about the efficient use of resources and talent. Talent is scarce in the economy. So as economists, we should be attracting the brightest and the best." (B, 04:45)
• Better Policymaking:
  • Diversity leads to better growth and more representative, effective policy.
• Professions Should Mirror the Society They Serve:
  • A less diverse profession is less equipped to address broad societal needs.

3. Barriers along the Pipeline

• Education Access:
  • Not all schools offer Economics at A level; those that do are disproportionately private or boys' schools.
  • "It's a massive problem in the UK that A level economics is not fairly distributed across, you know, school types, for sure." (C, 22:46)
  • Undergrad level: ~33% women; Master’s is higher due to international students, but PhD reverts to ~40%.
• Culture and Expectations:
  • Competitive, hierarchical publication culture in academia disadvantages women.
  • Interruptions and lack of respect in seminars—a study found junior women are interrupted much more often than men, especially by senior men.
  • "Women, in particular more junior women, were being interrupted systematically, much more than men in the first five minutes of their presentation..." (B, 11:49)
• Toxicity and Belonging:
  • Only 25% of women surveyed in the American Economic Association felt valued in the profession (vs. 47% of men).
  • "There are certain groups that do not feel like they belong." (B, 15:14)
• Work–life Balance and Career Progression:
  • Maternity and family leave impacts women's career trajectories across workplaces, especially at crucial promotion stages.
  • "There's definitely this thing about women have children, right? And that means they take time out of their career at quite an important point." (C, 33:13)

4. Representation and Field Segregation

• Field Clustering:
  • More women in labor, family, applied economics; fewer in macro or trade, though this is changing, especially in the public sector.
  • "Once you've got one or two women who are seen to do well... it then attracts others." (A, 26:19)
• Role of Networks and Role Models:
  • Critical for career development and encouraging more women to enter and remain in the field.

5. What’s (Not) Working? Interventions and Policy

• Policy Examples:
  • The ECB’s mentoring and promotion policy dropped the male-female promotion gap by 30 percentage points.
• Initiatives:
  • Discover Economics campaign; mentoring programs; targeted efforts at institutions to expand teacher supply and support.
  • "I think changing the culture and getting more women is part of changing that culture. ...networks, you need mentoring, you need all these things" (B, 24:10)
• Quotas and Shortlists:
  • Debate on women-only shortlists: most panelists favored focus on equal opportunity over quotas.
  • "I think you have to think really, really hard about things like interview panels, things like the information you give to candidates, things like how much support you give to people..." (C, 66:13)
• Institutional Responsibility:
  • LSE and other leading bodies should lead by example, not just in numbers but in changing cultures for inclusion.

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Memorable Quotes

• On Representation:
  “Economics as a social science is a little bit of an outlier in the social science spectrum. It behaves more like mathematics and physics...” (B, 02:32)
• On Progress:
  "The numbers of women studying economics is still really, really low and actually worse than STEM subjects. It’s not improving." (C, 32:36)
• On Experience:
  "Even now, I find myself in a room and it’s a load of men and it’s, you know, and quite often you don’t sort of even notice it anymore because it’s so common." (C, 54:41)
• On Practical Advice:
  “Do what interests you... people are good at the things they are interested in...just go for it.” (C, 36:28)
• On Policy:
  “What the AEA has done, the American Economic Association, is an important signal to other harassers in the profession... it's setting the values of the profession very clearly.” (B, 80:05)
• On the Future:
  “When economics is tested by future challenges, I hope that at present profession will be able to say that we all have done what we could to attract the best people and the best ideas.” (B, quoting Janet, 16:04)

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Advice & Strategies

To Women Entering Male-Dominated Spaces

• Prepare points in advance, focus on value, not volume—“People notice the value-adding comments. They don’t notice the other stuff...”(C, 54:41)
• Find allies in meetings to amplify your voice.
• “Practice” is key—confidence grows with experience. (A, 57:29)
• Recognize some dynamics are structural, not personal—don't internalize dismissive behaviors. (B, 59:23)
• Delegate, mentor, and empower others early to build networks and collective action. (B, 40:38, 41:14)

Regarding Changing Career Paths

• Route into economics possible at postgrad (Master’s/PhD) even from non-economics backgrounds. (B, 75:24)
• No one “set route”—persistence, curiosity, and further study can bridge gaps. (A, 74:31)

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Audience Q&A Highlights (Selected)

On Speaking Up as a Young Woman (E, 50:30)

• Focus on preparation and substance, not pressure to talk for talking’s sake.
• Seek feedback, build supportive relationships as “allies.”
• Be aware that structural biases (interruptions, dismissals) exist—don’t blame yourself.

On Economics’ Relevance to Real-World/Grassroots Issues (E, 51:54)

• Economics needs to broaden its frameworks, integrate real-world evidence, and compliment with other disciplines like anthropology.
• Classical theory alone often fails to address cultural and gendered realities at the grassroots.

On Institutional Change

• Changing systems requires both internal commitment (mentoring, pro-diversity policies) and external pressure (e.g., public accountability for gender balance).
• Panel divided on quotas; universal agreement on needing level playing fields and strong pipelines.

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Notable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Leaky Pipeline Illustrated: (00:52–02:00)
• Discussion of Toxic Culture and Interruptions: (11:33–11:49)
• ECB Promotion Gap Policy Case Study: (12:49–14:03)
• Climate Surveys—Belonging and Value: (14:39–15:14)
• Power of Role Models and Demonstration Effect: (26:19, 37:31–38:23)
• Strong closing quote on attracting best ideas: (16:04)
• Practical advice for meetings and allies: (54:41–61:08)

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Closing Remarks

Despite incremental progress—some fields and organizations now see more women in senior economics roles—the field as a whole moves slowly. The way forward is multifaceted: improving access to education, proactively changing professional cultures, fostering inclusive research and policy agendas, and supporting networks and role models at every stage. The urgent message: “Economics needs women—not just for equity, but for the advancement, insight, and breadth it brings to the discipline and society.”

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For Further Learning and Involvement:

• Panelists encourage listeners, especially undergraduates and early-career women, to join networks (e.g., Women in Economics at LSE/CEP, Discover Economics), attend events, and build both male and female mentoring relationships.
• Book recommendation for aspiring economists: Why Can't We Just Print More Money? (Bank of England), podcasts, and following economic news/documentaries.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the LSE Events podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.

[B]

All right. Hello everyone. It's wonderful to be here and to see so many of you.

Men and women because I'm more used to, when I give these talks it's usually women. So it's really nice to see men as well in you audience. So my talk today is going to be centered around the theme of why economics needs women. And I'm going to give you some numbers and hopefully we'll leave the presentation thinking about.

[A]

That.

[B]

Economics does indeed need women and diversity more generally. So this is the latest data from hisa. So it collects all the data from all academics and students in the uk and there's a lot of information here. This is from the Royal Economic Society's latest report on women in economics. But there are two things that I want you to focus on. One is the bottom, the bottom bit where we can see the leaky pipeline. Right, so these are 36.5% are the amount of lecturers that are women when they enter academia. It goes down to 26.3% when they move on to senior lecturer or reader or associate professor, depending on the scale that you use. And then it goes down to 18% at the professoriate level. So there's only 18 women professors in the UK.

And the other. So this is striking and I'm going to show you that it's not something that we have today. It's been going on for quite a long time. So it's not just a matter of time.

It hasn't been solved in the time that it should have been.

The other thing, the other graph that is important is this cross disciplinary comparison that you have on the.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I'm not sure that you can see it very well. It is this one here. So economics is the sort of orange bar. It's pretty small compared to the other bars, which I'm not sure that you can read. But the longer bars are the humanities and the social sciences. The shorter bars that are very much like economics are the STEM sciences. Right. But economics as a social science is a little bit of an outlier in the social science spectrum. It behaves more like mathematics and physics where the proportion of women in academia.

Professors.

Is much smaller. Right, so what is it about economics? Why do we have so few women?

So this is another piece of evidence where. So this comes from the 2021 report that we did where we actually surveyed different think tanks. The bank of England is there as well. And we. We're trying to figure out whether this was something specific to academia or whether this was a more widespread phenomenon. And what we see is that generally women are underrepresented women economists throughout the different sectors of the economy. But it's much higher. Say in the government service, the treasury, it's almost 40% of women. Bank of England, the graduate intake, it's about 45%, although it goes down to around 30. But still, it seems that in academia it's a much sort of. It's a bigger problem than in other places.

Why do we need a diverse profession? And today we're focusing on women. There is a very strong economic argument for equality or for equality of opportunities in the profession and for diversity.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Economics is all about the efficient use of resources and talent.

Is scarce in the economy. So as economists, we should be attracting the brightest and the best.

It fosters growth when we have diverse ideas. And at the end of the day, our profession should also reflect the society that we're trying to serve.

And I guess what is really relevant for today, given that we have Claire and Janet, who work in policy and the private sector.

It'S the fact that economists are everywhere influencing policy, influencing the world around us, giving advice. In academia, we give advice to policymakers.

In policy, we implement the different policies. And if we don't have a diverse set of voices, then it's kind of problematic. We're not doing the best policies that we can.

So where does this all start? So what we did as well, and this is from the 2021 report, we looked at the student population. And so the blue line here is undergraduates, as I think a lot of you are, and we see it's below 35%. So it's around 33% of undergraduates are women. And what you can see over the years, so this is from 2012, you see a very flat line there. So things haven't moved a lot, necessarily.

Master's level, it shoots up quite a lot, up to more than 50%. So that's the orange line. There is a big intake of non UK students, so that drives kind of the part of the rise that is happening there. But again, very flat in terms of how this proportion of women economists at master level has evolved. And then at doctorate level, so PhD students, we go back to quite low numbers, around 40%. There seem to be an increased share, but it is still quite, you know, not quite there yet in terms of equality.

So this is more recent data from the bank, just showing the same numbers going up to 2023. So you know, different reports are showing very, very stable numbers over time. So things are not necessarily moving.

And just to. So this was the student level. And what we did here was to look at how things have progressed at the professoriate level in academia, what happens.

With professors, et cetera. So here we have professors, that's.

[A]

The.

[B]

Lighter blue readers, it's the orange. And lecturers are the.

The sort of purple. So we go from more senior to less senior. And what we see is that the more seniority, so these are professors, the light blue, the fewer women. And you see some upward trend in all of this. So what we did here was to compare the data that the Royal Economic Society had been collecting since 1995. That was survey data where we asked departments to give us their numbers. And we were trying to change to administrative data the HISA data in 2003, where we had all the population of academics. So what we were trying to do was to see.

How much sort of the new data could be matched to the old data. And the conclusion here was that there seemed to be upward trends, but not necessarily as much as we would like to see. And certainly at the professoriate level we're still at very, very low numbers. And even at the lecture level it's at around 30% as I was showing before. And it seems that it's still.

This is from a paper of mine where we compare. So these are just Russell groups and we compare the UK numbers to US numbers. There's also been a studies in Europe and things seem very, very similar. Things are not moving. It's not just a UK phenomenon, but it's around the world phenomena for women in economics. So I want to finish with what we can do. I think we're going to be talking about that.

In the panel. But just to give you a sense of where we are in terms of research, in terms of the discussion that the profession is having. So I think the cross disciplinary evidence that I showed at the beginning is quite telling. Of course, women in economics.

The same problems that apply to women in the labor market apply to women in economics. But it seems a little bit of an outlier and it seems that there is a little bit, there may be something else with economics in particular. Some of the things that have come up in the literature is the competitive and hierarchical nature of the, the publication. So economics as a social sciences values a narrow set of journals and this is very specific to academia and that can create.

These kind of.

Pipelines where very few people dominate the discipline, and that may disadvantage some groups, women in particular.

Other research has uncovered.

Kind of a toxic culture. For example, this latest study that is coming in the American economic review.

Had PhD students listened and observing online seminars and recording when women or men were being interrupted and by whom and when in their presentation. And what they uncovered systematically was that women, and in particular more junior women, were being interrupted systematically, much more than men in the first five minutes of their presentation, and generally by an older sort of more senior man. So there seems to be something around the corner culture in economics that is very different from what's going on in other social sciences, for example. So at the ras, the Women's Committee ukwan, we have published different reports on things that can be done. So we published one on hiring.

There's been papers looking at different policies. So, for example, this is a policy at the European Central bank where they changed the mentoring and the promotion process. So they introduced a set of measures. So what you see here, the black line is the gap in terms of promotion. The black line is before 2011. So this is when, before all the measures were introduced. And you see that by age 10. So.

The X axis shows the number of years in the bank, right? So here is after two years of entry, after four years. So in the third year you see big increases in terms of the promotion gaps of men and women. By the 10th year, there is a 40% gap. Okay? So men are more likely to be promoted. So this was before 2011. The dotted line is after 2011, after all these measures around promotion were introduced. And we see that the gap between men and women, the promotion gap.

After 10 years of being working on the fund, has reduced by 30 percentage points. It's still not zero, but it's much, much lower. Right. So all these things do help not just women in economics, but, but women more generally. Going back to the climate survey, and right now it's very timely. So these are climate surveys that the American Economic association did in 2018, 2025. The conclusion has been that not a lot of things have changed. So, for example, I feel valued within the economics profession, 47% of men will say say yes, whereas only 25% of women will say yes. The Royal Economic Society, the European Economic Society, the different countries, economic societies have run similar surveys since then. And what is coming out is this notion that there are certain groups that do not feel like they belong. So I guess these are. This is what motivated us to start a network of women economists, both here at lse, at the center for Economic Performance and as Steve was mentioning also through ukwan, which is part of the Royal Economic Society. So for all of you, if you want to learn more, I encourage you to, to sign up to our newsletter and come to our events. So this is just some examples of events that we've done and I'd like to finish with Janet and quote why economics needs women.

And she said, when economics is tested by future challenges, I hope that at present profession will be able to say that we all have done what we could to attract the best people and the best ideas. So with that I'm going to close. Thank you.

[D]

Great. Thanks Medina for setting the scene extremely well for lots of issues I think that we're going to be talking about across the whole kind of life cycle. I think about, you know, barriers to entry, things that happen within the economics profession maybe exit as well and have maybe clear differences perhaps by gender in those. So let's, let's, so we can have a panel discussion now where I'm going to ask a bunch of different questions. But let's start with that kind of issue about entry into the, into the economics profession. We've got three people here who have turned out to be highly successful entrants into the economics profession. So I guess, I guess I'd like to ask about what or who or when something happened, what inspired you to become an economist? Should we start with Claire?

[C]

Sure, why not? Thanks very much and it's great to be here. It's great to see so many young economists or people interested in economics. I'm going to try and convince you to pursue it as a career over the course of the evening. Gosh. So I got into economics just because I thought it was really interesting. So, you know, sort of quite interested teenager, what's going on in the world? How do you understand the world and thought economics is the best way way to do that. You know, I wanted to be able to understand like the news, including the bits where it gets onto the numbers and stuff like that. And I thought that would be an interesting thing to do. I was very lucky. I went to a sixth form college. They had economics as an A level. So I studied it and really liked it and that's basically how I got into it, went to university, studied it again, really liked it. I studied it as part of a degree with some other subjects, really liked it, had some tutors that were encouraging and that was kind of it. But it was basically this sort of inherent interest in the subject as a way to understand the world, what drives it, what makes it work? Why are things the way they are? You know, and also how things could be different, you know, if you think about, I don't know, whatever challenge that you might be worried about, poverty, you know, the environment, international development, all of those things. The best way to understand, Understand how to make them better is to understand economics. Was my view.

[D]

Great, Janet?

[A]

Yeah, for me it was, well, kind of similar because I.

Obviously, I just studied economics at university because it was my favourite A level. But how did I get into wanting to do it for A level? And I think it was, you know, I was numerate, I liked maths and I was interested in politics and I liked elements of geography, the economic geography side of things. And so I remember thinking I didn't really know what economics was. You know, I remember looking up a definition, what is economics? And it said something like, you know, the allocation of scarce resources amongst competing uses. And I remember saying to someone I knew who was studying economics, A level, I said, what is economics? And he said, janet, see that glass of Coke? If that's 10 pence, and then I cut it to 5 pence, would you buy two? I said, yeah, absolutely. And if I cut it to 1 pence, I said, yeah, fill my boots. He said, that's economics. So he explained supply and demand and price sensitivity. And I kind of got it. So it was. Yeah, and then the definition made sense. It was, you know, political choices. There was, you know, political changes underway at the time and it was, why do people make those decisions? Why is this interesting? And I figured there was probably a bit more to it than the price of Coke and how much I would buy. But, yeah, using my maths, my interest in politics to think about why decisions are made and how resources should be effectively allocated.

[D]

Estimating the price velocity of demand in your head while you're doing it. Yeah.

How would I know?

[B]

All right, so I'm gonna be a little bit of the odd one out because I had no idea what economics was when I finished high school. So I studied in Spain, I'm originally from Spain, and there wasn't such a thing as A levels. And economics wasn't covered in high school. But I knew that I was good at maths, I liked maths, but I was also very interested in politics, history, all this sort of like more social science, even humanities. And I, you know, economics seemed like the obvious sort of.

Degree to study that would mix both.

Also, I guess the first year in my degree I studied micro and suddenly it opened my mind. I understood the world, I understood how the world worked. I understood how people made decisions and then once you understand that, you can start thinking about how can you change the world. Right. And that was very powerful. And, you know, since then, this is what I try to transmit to my students as well.

[D]

Some common themes but some differences as well. You know, I mean, of course, the thing was, back in the day, not. I mean, you said you did manage to do an Economics A level or you studied economics. There wasn't. It wasn't really. It's relatively recent that economics has become.

[A]

I actually asked a colleague of mine who was sitting next to me and she's, you know, she's 22 and she said, because she was at a girl's grammar school and she said they didn't offer economic sailor level. She's young. I mean, we say back in the day.

[D]

Speaking about myself.

[A]

No, but what I'm saying, even for. Even for people, even for people today, a lot of schools do not offer Economics A level. They could. They could be bussed to the local. You know, she's. She was in a part of the country where there were state grammar schools. They could be bused to the boys school and the boys who wanted to study textiles could be bused to the girls school. Steel, stereotypes are underwater way in the world. But some schools today do not offer Economics A level.

[C]

I mean, you don't need it. We should be fair. You don't need to study economics at A level to study at university. In fact, the vast majority of people who study university economics haven't got an A level in it. But it is a massive problem in the UK that A level economics is not fairly distributed across, you know, school types, for sure. Much more likely to be available in private schools, much more likely to be available in boys schools than elsewhere. So there's quite a lot of work underway, actually, to try and expand that. And a lot of that is about the supply of teachers and other things.

[D]

Yep. So that leads on quite nicely to the second question, which is once people are doing economics, there was very clear, actually, very big gaps in different fields of economics that men and women work in or study or. Or advise on and so on. What do you think of that and what are the consequences of that? I mean, you might trace it back to the fact that people couldn't do A levels. Maybe some people do it at A level, Economics might not do economics subsequently, but that's the other side of it. So let's scare the other way with this. What do you think about the. I mean, it was very, very Clear differences in the subfields in economics. About economics.

What demographic groups, it's not just confined to gender of course as well, but what demographic groups specialize in different areas.

[B]

So I guess, you know, my last slides sort of hinted to the culture in economics that comes because of the structure that we have, at least in academia. So I think changing the culture and getting more women is part of changing that culture. Right. So there are some fields like labor economics or family economics, applied economics, more generally where you see more women and that has attracted more, more and more women. Whereas other fields like trade or macroeconomics continue to be quite nailed on, dominated. And it's very hard to move away from that equilibrium. And I think in order to change the culture you need things like what we're doing today. You need the networks, you need mentoring, you need all these things, which is what we're trying to do.

[D]

Two people here who are actually in the more macro area, which is a place where women are mostly underrepresented, certainly if you do the academic divide. But it's also true things have changed a bit in both bank settings.

[A]

Yeah, they have, I think. Well, certainly for me it was just macro was what I was most interested in. A level, it was so much depends when you're at school on your teacher. And actually my microeconomics teacher was fantastic and you know, I was really interested in the micro, but at university it was the macro side and also given my political overlay, the macro was the most, most interesting to me. But I think, you know, as you were saying, you know, networks certainly can be helpful. But also what I wouldn't underestimate is that just the demonstration effect of women because as you rightly say, macroeconomics in the financial sector is very, very much, much a male dominated field. But whether it's, you know, the bank I work for or you know, I've heard it from people that work in publishing and you know, economics based magazines. Once you've got one or two women who are seen to do well and build a successful career, it then attracts others. You know, my, my team, my economics team in London is over half women. And it started with one and then it was two and then it was three. But to Janet Yellen's point, she just wants the best people. I didn't say I'm going to hire more women, but more women applied and I always, I've hired men, I've hired women, and I've always hired the best person for the job because yeah, it started with one and I started in a small team in Hong Kong and, you know, did okay and then moved across to London and. And, yeah, I wouldn't underestimate. Just getting one or two people in the role can make it easier for others.

[D]

Small numbers. You know, there's all this work about. Ed Lazear had this paper about.

Children misbehaving in school. And so if you've got one kid in the class who misbehaves, the teacher can sort of manage her. But if you go to two, it's gone, and so do you have it. So even the threshold on a more positive side, more of a negative side, could be that kind of thing. The next question will speak to some of that kind of issue about the general environment as well.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I quite like this comparison to women in macro misbehaving. But anyway, school children. But I mean, actually, I would just really challenge it, if I'm honest. So it may be the case in academia, it is not the case in practice. So, you know, I can see SWATI here. We have a majority of women on the npc. It's nine members. It's set up to be an uneven number. It's more women than men. Right. The chief economist at the treasury currently is a woman. I was the first woman to do it. There's lots of other jobs around that, actually. You can be a macroeconomist and a woman, Janet Yellen, you know, she had the most powerful economics position in the world at one point when she led the Federal Reserve, you know, and has done many other things. Christina Garr runs the ecb. So I would really challenge it. I mean, I take the point that in academia you typically do get more women doing or things like public economics or development economics tend to be thought of in that way. If I think about at the bank, some of the stuff we do around quantitative easing, quantitative timing, some of the most complicated things. There's an awful lot of women working on those policies, actually. So I would really challenge it, I think, in practice, actually, you've got a lot of women in very senior roles in, you know, the sorts of fields of economics that 10, 20 years ago you wouldn't have seen women in, or you would have had one or two, and they would have really stood out. I think now it stands out a bit less. I mean, you know, you still go to conferences and okay, the balance isn't quite there yet, but it's definitely changing.

[B]

It is changing. Yes. Thanks God. And I think it's partly because everything that we collectively are doing, because if you look at the. So when I started about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more giving this sort of talk, my opening line was the NPC picture, right. And it was all men. It's now majority women. So it has changed tremendously, but it hasn't changed by chance. That's what I think is also important to highlight.

[D]

Great. So some of our Moderna slides were kind of highlighting not just issues about entry and so on, but the dynamics and the whole career advancement process. So I guess the next question is going to be about. Well, I've got do you think, or you might put a Y in front. Why do you think women do face specific challenges in making in a career in economics? Not just the entry but you know, we saw those kind of profiles that further you go, I mean it could be time effects, but probably not.

You know, some people who would say oh but you know, it's changing a bit. So of course that's fine because it will work itself out over time. Once more cohorts come through but progress isn't very fast even if it is, if it is any program.

So what do you think about either talk about the specific challenges or about the overall issues to do with career dynamics and so on. Maybe we'll go to Janet in the middle to start with.

[A]

Well, I mean I think especially, you know, I still find that I've seen presentations that you've done before and I'm always staggered by the numbers when I see the academic numbers. I know there are specific challenges in academia to do with publications and the fact is men still can't have children. And so you know, there are a lot of those specific challenges in academia regarding publications and such like. But I think it's harder to say what the challenges are for women in other sectors in non academic sectors. And some of it is women just in some cases aren't as interested in it. You know, especially you know, the idea of working in the financial sector and they are very long hours. There is this perception that anyone that works for in the financial sector is only in it for the money. And actually a lot of women don't want to make those choices and it's not something that they aspire to do. Rather than it being all I ever really wanted to do was be a woman that worked for a bank as an economist. That was never my career goal when I was 21 was to be the chief economist for HSBC. You can't always, always say well that was my goal. My goal was to be a Financial Times foreign correspondent. Failed at that one, but had another one, you know, so, you know, the career path that you start out on isn't always necessarily the one that you end up doing. Claire, did you aspire to be the deputy governor of the bank of England when you do your A level?

[C]

No, I. God knows what I thought I was going to end up doing, but I actually didn't understand that there were jobs like this at all. I mean, you know, I didn't really know many kind of professional people, but I thought you were a doctor or a lawyer and those are sort of professional jobs. I think, I think there's a few things and I take the point that I think there are more barriers in academia, but there are barriers everywhere and I don't want to sort of be complacent about that. I think it's really dangerous to make the sort of pipeline argument that it'll just come through in the end because actually as we're seeing, it's not. The numbers of women studying economics is still really, really low and actually worse than STEM subjects. It's not improving. So the number of women studying maths is increasing, studying engineering, computer science, those are all increasing. The proportion that are studying economics is not. And I think that is really, really worrying. I think part of that is about the image of economics which just, I think a lot of people switch off when they hear the term or they think it's quite boring or they picture something that it isn't. So you know, I often say if you, if you ask people what they think of when they think of an economist, I. They generally think of a man, sort of middle aged man, talking about the stock market, that kind of thing. That's not at all what economics is about actually. But I think we really struggle to get that across to people. And you know, when you're 17, 18, 19, 20, you're thinking about what you want to do with your life. Like you said, you don't necessarily think economics is as interesting as it turns out to be. So I think there's a sort of image problem. There's definitely this thing about women have children, right? And that means they take time out of their career at quite an important point. And there's lots of evidence that shows that's the point at which people generally are progressing. Now that is true across all professions though. So, you know, there's something special going on in economics. There's definitely something about role models, right? This whole if you can't see it, you can't be it thing. And we have that. And by the Way this is across all sort of diversity groups. You know, it's still the case that the role models are not as prevalent. So I think there are a set of things and that's why it's really important. As Ahmadina says, we look at all of the ways in which we can really challenge this, whether it's the leaky pipeline, done loads of work in the public sector about how do you make sure women, you know, when they apply for a job, they get all the way through to the end of the stages, all those sorts of things. But there's definitely a set of things that I think are barriers to keep.

[D]

On going through the whole career process.

[A]

Yes, right.

[B]

Yes, I totally agree. And.

So I presented a couple of examples. So the example of the ecb, the European Central bank, when they introduced a lot of measures around promotion, being aware that women.

Were not applying and they were not getting the promotion. So all these things do change things. So I think that that's something that we should keep in mind. I also analyze the Athena Swan and what we see is that there is an increase in representation after Athena Swan recognition as well as us closing of the gender gap, pay transparency. So all these things of course apply to women more generally, not just women in economics, I guess we, for me, and this is something that the profession is still sort of figuring out, what is it particularly about women in economics, economics, academia, but also it's economics somewhere else. Because as you said, Janet said in finance, I mean it's totally male dominated. Right. And when you have a very male dominated profession, I think what is needed is the sort of things that we're talking about, about here. You need role models, you need a stronger networks, you need support networks, sort of that to break that, to get to that threshold where things start changing.

That's what I think.

[D]

Okay, good. So we've been mentioning peers and role models and the RES network of course does mentoring programs and so on as well. So the next question I've got is it could be a two parter. But the first part is what's the best advice that you've had in your career? If you want to also answer the one about your worst advice as well, you can if you want.

That was me taking liberty with the questions. Claire.

[C]

Yeah, for worst advice, best advice is kind of, I don't know, a couple things. One is work on, do the. Do what interests you, right? Because you'll put more effort in, you'll enjoy it more, you'll, you know, commit yourself more to it. And basically people are Good at the things that they're interested in. So, you know, the piece of advice I always, you know, there's been most value to me is that. And I pass that advice on. And then the other thing I would say is sort of just kind of go for it. I mean, it's interesting, all the stuff talking about, about mentors. And I would say if I think about the people that I've had as mentor, I mean, not formal mentors, but people I've looked up to that have supported my career, pretty much all men. And so I really wouldn't, you know, I would encourage people to just get support from wherever you can get it from, actually, and find people who you think will really sort of be good advisors to you on the sorts of issues that you're dealing with and what you're thinking about. But, yeah, do what you're interested in, basically, and. And would be the piece of advice that I've probably valued the most that I've been given.

[A]

Yeah, mine very, very similar. You've got to do something that you love doing and you love thinking about and talking about and writing about and working on all the time. But likewise, while it's helpful to have female role models, because as Claire says, if you can't see it, you can't be it. But also it's really important to have male role models as well and people that you trust as well as a working woman. And your point about being interesting and finding it interesting for someone? For me, because I, you know, I'd worked at the Economist Intelligence Unit. I was an economist and I also wrote about the politics. I remember asking the one person I knew that worked in the financial sector about being a brokering economist. He said, janet, you don't have to be right. You just got to be interesting.

Which is kind of, you know, a bit. But it did make me think about it. It's not just whether you've done the best possible piece of work in a very complicated model. The nature of the job that I was in, it was about the storytelling element as well and about being interesting in what you were saying. So, yeah, that too.

[B]

Really good advice.

I always learn something new, you know.

Yeah, definitely do what you like and find about what you like and maybe revisit that. That's the best advice that I was given by my biology teacher in high school. So, you know, you never know where the advice may be coming from. And that is the other thing that mentors are everywhere and people want to help everywhere. That's also something that I've discovered it doesn't have to be a formal relationship, it doesn't have to be.

A mentor for everything, but you'll find.

Those small advices throughout. And it's just being aware of when.

Somebody'S trying to help you and somebody's trying to tell you something that is actually going to make a difference. Right. So just being open to that, I think it's quite important. And also I guess for me and going back to children and going back to women in particular.

What was really important was to think around minimums as well. Like what is the minimum quality? And that is as a woman that is already quite high, quite a high bar. Because when time becomes really, really pressing because of all the demands that you have and I mean it's not necessarily just children, but you know, as an undergraduate there are times where you would have your exams and you would be able to participate in your societies as much as you would. So in those moments, I think thinking about.

Delegating, but delegating with purpose so that you can pass on your knowledge and you can pass on your experience and you can pass on your passion onto the next generation. And I think.

Doing that earlier rather than later. So, you know, if you're a first year undergraduate and, and you're participating in a society and maybe you're writing blog posts and then the second year you are designing those and writing at the same time, well, maybe pass on the writing to.

The next level of students and concentrate on more of a leadership or a strategic type of role. But enriching and giving that opportunity to the next.

To the next generation and I think the sooner that one start to get practice with that and seeing delegating not as a way of passing on work but actually as a way to develop and keep opportunities and then it has to be done with Purvis and it has to be done as an investment, I think that's also quite important or to me it really helps.

[D]

Okay, great. So both Ahmadine's talk and various things that we discussed here make it clear that, you know, we want to think about how can we improve things, how can we change things? So who do we think are the appropriate agents of change here? Do we think it's firms, do we think it's bank, do we think it's what's going on in schools? You three have lots of experience at that and you've seen a lot during your careers, I think about possible ways in which things could be improved. And how can that be? I mean, you know, we see fairly stagnant Trends, maybe a tick up, a little tick up, ticks up. But we don't want to leave it to the cohort effect.

[A]

I think it's interesting, the point that Claire made. You know, the share of women studying undergraduate economics, I think it's the same. Same as it was when I graduated in 1990. You know, why hasn't that risen? And I wonder whether, you know, these most recent moves towards teaching financial literacy in schools, especially if we're talking about the fact that a lot of schools don't even teach, you know, economics A level, it's just not something that a lot of people even consider. Maybe that's. It broadens the pool, doesn't it? You know, maybe the 18% figure in academia isn't as shocking when it's measured as against 36 or so of 50% of women in some sectors, when actually only 36% of women economics are graduates. Maybe that's where some of the biggest changes need to happen. Just getting more girls studying it at a much younger age and then you're broadening the. The pool in schools.

[D]

It seems like making Halo Economics available hasn't done much because as we say, the trends are kind of flat.

[C]

Well, it isn't more available. I mean, that's basically a slight problem with it. I mean, we've got a scheme at the moment where we are taking people who are qualified to teach in sort of adjacent subjects, so maths, geography. And we are, you know, at the moment, we're piloting a system of teaching them to teach economics because it will provide more. A greater supply of teachers. But actually the proportion of the availability of, for example, A level economics to kids has not gone up particularly. So, you know, I agree with Janet. You've got to get there early, basically, and expand the pool. And that is about, you know, supply and demand, being honest. But there is, you know, there's also evidence that people want to study economics but schools can't offer it because they can't find teachers to do it. So, you know, it's getting into. It's getting into. And then of course, there are a set of things that as employers, you know, of economists and the government is a good example of this, and the bank of England is a good example of this. Big employers have a responsibility to sort of also. I mean, as Janet says, I don't want loads of women to work at the bank because they're women. I want loads of like, I want the best people to work at the bank.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You know, from all sorts of different, you know, backgrounds Perspectives and that's what sort of diversity really is about. It's about people with different viewpoints, different perspectives, and you just want the best. And that means you've got to have the widest, the widest talent. And so, you know, we've got to get all those. You know, there's a lot of evidence around the missing Marie Curies. Right. We've got to find them, we've got to get them connected to the opportunities.

[D]

But I mean, sticking with schools down, you know, there's lots of business, business studies that people do and there is some economics in that. But is it the right curriculum that people are being taught to go on and be economists or would that put people off? I mean, I don't know.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

I mean, bank of England has been doing quite a lot on this, the Royal Economic Society as well with the Discover Economics program this year. I think there was an uptick in A levels in economics of the students that.

We want to think that things are still starting to move in the right direction.

And again, as Claire said, you don't need economic, say levels to study economics in undergraduate. But I think it helps in getting to know the subject because in my case it was by chance, basically by elimination of other subjects, I ended up in economics, but it wasn't because I knew what I wanted to do.

[A]

But it's kind of less risky if you do it as an A level.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Truth the matter, it's only one of the three or four that you do and you can just about get through it and think, oh, glad I didn't wait till I was 18 and go and study it for three years and be miserable if you don't like it. So I, I think there is that element of it's, it's more than dipping your toe in, but it's not full commitment. This is where I'm going to spend the next at least three years of my life studying it.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But we've also got it. We've got to also convince people that they should build a career in it.

[D]

Right.

[C]

Look at this, a fantastic audience. Right?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

But I don't know what you, what they're going to do. Like, what are you guys going to do next? Right. You should want to come and be an economist. It's brilliant.

[B]

Right?

[C]

Let's be, let's be frank. It's really interesting. Right. Every day is different. You're thinking about different things. I mean, as you were saying, right, you don't do it because you always wanted to work at a bank. You do it because it's a really interesting job that helps you understand the world. Right. It's actually like, pretty lucrative, right? I mean, you know, you're not going to be a millionaire, but, you know, actually it's one of those jobs that gives you better life choices, right? Gives you control over much more of your life. You know, it's like, absolutely, you can do a range of things. You can move around, you can work in the uk, you can work abroad, you can work all around the country, you can work in different sectors. So I also think we should be selling it a bit more as a career that people should really think about and take seriously as an option. Because, you know, I mean, I feel really lucky that I made those choices when I was quite young and didn't really know what I was sort of doing. You know, like, I was just lucky other people made different choices and, you know, you don't have as much information. So I think there's a. We really need to sort of be out there selling it as a career that is really rewarding.

[A]

I completely agree. I feel that I am very, very privileged to spend most of my day thinking and talking about. About what's going on in the world. So.

[B]

Yeah, Yes, I couldn't agree more. I thought it was because I was an academic and I loved my job and I loved sitting down with my data and my papers and my models. So I love to hear this from you because I think it has to do with being an economist. I think economists look at the world in a very different way, understand the world in a very different way, in ways that, I don't know. It's very enlightening and then it's very powerful because if you see the world in particular ways, you can think about different ways of changing that kind of world in a way that.

Makes the world a better place, which I guess that's what we all want to do. Right. And this is something that maybe we didn't discuss, you know, when you asked about. The best advice is about, you know, it's about your values. Right. And I think economics allows you to pursue those values. And when I started to study economics, I didn't know what economics was, but I. But I was very certain about my values and the inequalities that were around me. And economics gave me such a powerful tool, not just to study and understand them, but to actually do something about it. So it's. Yeah, I couldn't say more.

[D]

Okay, that's a great place to end our panel discussion and we'll move on to the next section, which is going to be Q and A, which as I mentioned at the start, we can take questions from the audience and if there's any questions being asked online, we can, we can take some of those as well. Oh, we've got a lot of hands.

So there's going to be a roving microphones, I think. Let's take our one in. Oh, no. Yeah, go on. One in the middle. I don't know why I said that because getting a roving microphone to the middle is obviously the worst decision completely.

Let's. Should we take two or three at a time? Should we do that? I need to pen because I won't.

[E]

Be able to remember. Thank you very much for your presentations. And my question is behind, but.

[D]

Okay, okay, okay. You can be second. No, you can be second.

[B]

Should I.

Give a question or not now? Because I feel like. Okay, okay. So I'm quite a young girl who just got in economics and finance as well. I work for Deloitte. I'm 23 years old. My question is specifically, every time I am in a meeting room, I'm full with men and I'm the only woman. And it's quite challenging for me to actually like speak up or give an opinion when it comes to taxation in this case. And so my question is what strategies helped you before you started your career and before you actually got the title and all those years of experience to actually have the opportunity to speak up in front of men? Like, what made you build that credibility? So that's my. If you have any advice, I would love to hear that. Thank you.

[D]

You can go second. Oh yeah, go. No, no, you've got Mike. Yeah, thank you.

[E]

So my question is regarding the events in your life that made it more difficult to, to get the position that you have now. So what were the, like the events in your life that prevented you maybe to reach this position like two, five years earlier than you got it now?

[C]

There.

[D]

Okay, then we'll take answers to the three.

[C]

My name is Aisha. I'm also a professor of development economics. So my question is on, actually the.

[B]

Economics that we are teaching, we are applying in ground. Is what I experiences too elitist, too elitist to solve grassroots, real grassroots issues.

Especially gendered grassroots issues, women issues in low income countries. Obviously it should definitely be complemented by the other strands of social sciences such as anthropology, which provides a foundation for cultural, religious, any, you know, grassroots variations.

[C]

Across.

[B]

The varying dynamics of the society. So what do you think about it? I'm really wondering about how this is our experience because we always work in grassroots and theory. The legacy, inherited theory of most of the economic theory is not working in the ground. Yeah, thank you.

[D]

Okay, great, thanks. So we've got three. When you're the only woman in the room or the group or whatever the activity is, you know, does that prevent you speaking up or what strategies you learn to speak up or what occurred there?

I feel, I feel that I'm the male chair. I asked then slightly negative questions as well. So any male question.

What'S your men in your life? Has made been difficult? So that's advice question as well. And then grassroots, very important question about, you know.

Is economics a good. A good discipline and subject for informing those kinds of questions and especially if there's a gender angle to them as well. So who wants to begin?

[C]

Hi, I'm interrupting this event to tell you about another awesome LSE podcast that we think you'd enjoy. Lseiq asks social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question like, why do people believe in conspiracy theories? Or can we afford the super rich come check us out. Just search for lseiq wherever you get your podcasts.

[A]

Now back to the event.

[C]

I'll take the. Oh, I'll start on being the only woman in the room. Although I suspect I'm not the only person that's, you know, you've both had quite a lot of. I mean, loads of that, right. And quite often, even now, I find myself in a room and it's a load of men and it's, you know, and quite often you don't sort of even notice it anymore because it's so common. And then when you find yourself in a room with loads of women, you're like, oh, my God, something's different. What's different? Oh, yeah, it's really hard. And it's really hard when you're junior, right? But I'll be honest, my experience of it now is completely different to what it was but when I was your age, and it's really, really difficult. And you will get, like, at the end of the year, you'll get appraisal feedback that's like, you should speak up more in meetings. And you're like, you know, from a man, right? You always get up and you're like, yeah, okay, can we imagine what that's going to feel like? I think there's a couple of things to do. One is like, give yourself a break, right? You don't have to speak at every meeting, and you shouldn't go into every meeting under pressure to speak Right, it's fine. And my general. The one bit of advice, if I could give myself from a long, you know, when I was younger, is like, just don't worry so much, it'll be okay. And you don't have to speak in a meeting if you've forgot nothing to say and don't do. The thing that loads of people do, men and women, but particularly men, is make a point to make a point, right? You don't have to do that, only do something, only say something. You've got value to add because people notice the value adding comments. They don't notice the other stuff in, in fact, they just get annoyed by it because it just slows everything down. So, you know, think about actually, what do you know, where can you add value? What are the things that you, you know, what's your USP in that meeting, right? What is it you might have noticed that no one else noticed? What might you be able to add value and do that and think about, you know, you can, there are strategies you can do. Like you can say to yourself, okay, there's a meeting coming up in a week's time, I'm going to make a point and I'm going to think in advance what my point is and prepare yourself for, for it and have a go and see how it feels. And afterwards, and you can even ask someone else, someone trusted in the meeting, you know, how did it go? And I made that point. You can do a bit of those sorts of things, but I'd say give yourself a bit of a break about it and don't worry that you always have to do it. The other thing is if you actually listen to what other people say, so sometimes you realize, like, not everyone is a genius, right? You sort of sit there and I do this. You sit there and you think, oh my God, I don't understand anything that's going on. And everyone else is so smart and they know what they're talking about. Over time you realize that's not true. And actually most people are also quite nervous, quite uncertain. And so I think also just sort of be a bit more kind of realistic that there's a whole mix of sort of things. Some people will be making really good points, some people won't be, it's not the end of the world. But I would just try and put it in a bit of perspective. And over time you will find that you become more comfortable in that environment and more comfortable making your points, particularly if you stick to, you know, making points about things that you are comfortable with. And confident in.

[A]

Yeah, I completely agree. So, first of all, congratulations for being the first person to ask a question. Presumably because there are a lot of women in the room. But the one word I wrote down because a strategy. I wrote practice. You know, I wish I could give you some really good kind of coping strategies. I agree with everything thing that Claire said and obviously it depends on the situation. It depends why you are in the meeting, what has got you a seat at the meeting and what do people expect you to be Deliver and don't be desperate to necessarily ask the first question and get your point heard. Sometimes you have meetings where it is about you making a point. Sometimes it's about. Actually it's for asking questions. And therefore the strategy is not to make a speech, just ask a question and. And remember why you are in the room to start with. So, yeah, it depends on the situation and practice. And as Clare says, even today I still have moments, you still find yourself in the room and you are still sometimes a bit nervous about being the only woman in the room in a room full of men. It still happens.

[B]

Okay.

I agree with everything that you said. I think I can add. I was just talking to.

More junior women and she works in it, and she was telling me she was in a meeting and there were two senior women and there were two men that were more junior and the more junior men were talking constantly. And these two senior women couldn't get their point across. Right. So this is what we're really talking about here. It's not that you don't know what to say. It's simply that every time you go and talk, there isn't that somebody cuts you in.

Everybody pretends they're not listening to you. It's happened to me in seminars where I would ask a question, it would be sort of dismissed, and then ten minutes later a man would ask the same question and there would be a half an hour discussion about it.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And you're like, what happened here?

So I think, yes, you do have the power, as Janet and Claire were saying, to prepare in advance, to think that you yourself have. You know, you can get practice.

But I think being also aware that these dynamics exist and that it's not about you, but there are things going on around you that have nothing to do with you. This is, you know, and a lot of the times it's not on purpose. You know, it's simply the way that we have been used to do things.

[C]

Right.

[B]

So anyway, so I just want to give you that reassurance. I don't know if it is reassurance or not, but just don't feel that it's all for you to solve at a meeting. And I think for me what's worked, for example, when this thing about in this particular seminar that I'm thinking of, there was a senior female colleague who, who when that happened and this man raised and asked the question 10 minutes after she said yes, that is right. This is what Almudena asked 10 minutes ago. This is a very important point, right. So finding Alice in meetings beforehand or during the meeting.

To know what is going to be discussed, to know what your point, the point that you want to make and the point that you want to make bring across and to then find an alley which can be a woman, can be a man, it's just an alley that is going to be looking at you and the dynamic and lending you a hand basically. And it can be simply nodding, right? Nodding as you speak. And that is quite powerful actually. So, yeah, I guess I have a specific tips more than what I thought.

Ah, the grassroots.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a really good question. And look, I'm not. I don't have a background in development economics where obviously there's a whole sort of massive issue in literature, but I think there's a really important question about is economics delivering for people? And a real criticism of economics at the moment, right, which is, you know, actually this system, however you describe it, isn't delivering for people. And that's why people are looking for alternatives outside of the sort of core, you know, system. So there's lots of policy areas where economists will tell you one thing, but you know that like migration is a good example of this, right. Economists will tell you that migration is fantastic because, you know, it increases growth, blah, blah, blah. That's very different to how a lot of people feel about it. And there are very real sort of consequences of migration and all those sorts. You can think of a million examples like that, I think. So there is this question of does the economic system, does the theories that we teach, are they, you know, representing the world and are they helpful? I think the answer to that though is not to sort of throw economics out, but to sort of look within economics. So why have we got such a lot of discontent at the moment? Well, actually a lot of that is about things like real incomes, productivity, what are we seeing over the longer term. And the answers to that are about actually how can you, you know, get closer growth going across all the country that benefits people. And the answers to those sit within economics, not outside it. So I think it can help you both diagnose the problem but also solve it. I do think there is a real challenge for economics and economics got better than this, that it's not just about a neoclassical and New Keynesian model. Actually, we have to think much more broadly about economics, about economic models, about the different ways of seeing the world. And I think some of the very sort of classical ways it's been taught have been quite alienating and haven't been a very good representation of people's experience of economies. And I think it's really important that economists not just can do the theory, but can also understand and observe the world around them and match the theory to that and adjust the way they think about things and their theories in light of what we see in the real world. Data.

[A]

Nothing to add to that. Excellent answer.

[D]

Should we take. Let's take a couple of. From the audience and one from the online.

And.

Right over there as well, two questions.

[C]

One is, you know, there's a lot of talk about A levels and the provision of economics at A levels. But, you know, economics isn't the only subject that's very underrepresented. I mean, some of the STEM subjects are as well and they have provision at A level. So do you really think that's going to change the dial enough or. By. Very much, really, if you just do that. And secondly, I'd like to have your views about whether there should be positive discrimination in the sense of women only shortlists for university jobs in economics.

[A]

And what's your position on that?

[C]

I saw a post last week by.

[B]

The LSE celebrating the appointment of the Dean of Public Policy to a group of 30.

[C]

And whilst this was an incredible achievement, the only thing I could see in.

[B]

The photo was the one woman out of 30. And I was wondering, like, especially in.

[C]

This group, which is meant to represent a global viewpoint of economics, if you think that institutions such as the LSE have a responsibility to acknowledge these differences.

There's one from some person who's quite keen to get into economics at university.

[B]

And would like to know if you've got any tips for books they could read.

[D]

Books.

[B]

The bank of England.

[C]

Why can't we just print more money?

[B]

Yes. And she's writing another book now, or she told us.

[A]

Rupal.

[B]

Yes, yes, definitely. I wouldn't think.

[C]

Yeah. So the banks published a book called why Can't We Just Print More Money? That's very good. I mean, it's a sort of explainer on questions like that, which I think is really accessible. I can't recommend the book. I'm a podcast person. I just listen to loads of podcasts of which there are many that are brilliant. So I can't, I'm not great on recommending books on my phone.

[D]

Shortlists, yeah, we didn't talk too much. We went a lot about entry in the agents of change and so on. But existing things about shortlists and promotions and so on.

[C]

I'm not in favor of women only shortlists for jobs. I don't think women need that. I think, you know, in a fair and open competition women are more than capable of going, of securing jobs and they, they often do what I do think so I think it's not positive discrimination but I think we have to take very seriously what we mean by equality of opportunity for jobs. And I think you have to think really, really hard about things like interview panels, things like the information you give to candidates, things like how much support you give to people way before they're at the point of applying for a job to make sure you've got a level playing field. So I would, that's the way I would tackle it is actually how do you remove all the barriers so that people genuinely have a fair opportunity to access things. But I wouldn't be in favor. Personally I'm not a big fan of your sort of women only shortlist approach but then it has worked quite successfully in other fields, politics being an example of where it's worked very, very successfully. And actually would I have said the same about that? Maybe I've been proved wrong.

[D]

So, so we couldn't completely hear the question about that but I think it was about how should high level institutions like the LSE and I think Oxford and Cambridge, should they be playing a role in, in, in. In talking about women economics? Is that sort of what you're asking? I think yeah. Yeah. Role models again. And I think, I think is that right? Is it is a reasonable translation.

[C]

It's about the question group of 30, wasn't it?

[D]

Yeah but I think it was when she bench meant to be the high end ones I think but okay, so yeah, maybe just say a couple sentences more.

[C]

It was a post last week celebrating.

[B]

The appointment of the Dean of Public.

[C]

Policy to the group of 30. And I was saying the only thing I could see in this despite like.

[B]

This being an incredible achievement, I could only say that there was one women in one woman in a group of.

[C]

30 in a group that's meant to.

[B]

Be a global representative of economic viewpoints.

[D]

I mean there's Obviously a role for people, appointing and gender balances and maybe not shortlist, but quotas. I don't know what people think about that. I mean it has to go there to some extent. If it's 1 out 30, I mean.

[B]

The issue with the quotas as we know is that as a short term solution it may, it may work because it may tip the balance, but it, it also may lead to backlash and.

You know, countermeasures. So I think the evidence is still quite open there in terms of what LSE can do. I think that our. I cannot speak for the Public Policy School because I have actually not interacted with them, although I have looked at their website and it's very male dominated. I've talked to, I was talking to the President the other last week actually and I raised this point and he mentioned that things may be changing there in the right direction. So I totally take your point that we should be playing by example. And I think at CEP this is something that we have been doing for quite some time now. And this is, you know, this is part of that. This event is part of that, that. So some of my colleagues here today are part of the Women in Economics initiative at CEP trying to change things at lse.

[D]

Okay, could this second round, there's one here, there. And.

We'Re going to run out of time. And we're going to run out of time, I'm afraid because there's so much interest in asking questions. But.

[E]

Okay, thank you. I'm a banker and also a local councillor.

One of the things that I found in banking here in UK is that we have very few women at the top, unlike in India where one third of the women chief executives of the banks are women. So women who study a particular subject, whether it's economics, finance or any subject for the matter, if they are seen to be going to the top and if you are seen in public, you know, addressing such classes in.

Year 12, year 13, then they would join more and more in finance and economics. That's one. They should be seen as role models and that you'll get promotions. I have a niece who got, who stayed here in 2002. Her question right from the start was what will happen to me? Will I get more promotions? More promotions, things like that. So they want to get to the top and they'll see people like you going to colleges and saying, look, we did finance and economics and look, we're at the top. You please do the same thing. You will also go up and the fact that you're A man or a woman will not come in your way. More so if you're a woman. And when it comes to women, it's a problem of a developed country. I run a bank in. Sorry for saying this, but I run a Bank in Saint Kitts and Navis where we have 50 women, 50 persons. And when we went and asked the person looks after recruitment in the government employment officer, what are the things that we are supposed to follow in terms of diversity, he cracked a very good joke. He said, if you take one non African boy in your bank, I'll be very happy. Majority of the women who come and work there are all girls. Women or compliance officers whom operating officers. All of them are women. Main reason being women are seen to be more and more committed, more dedicated to their work and more goal oriented rather than just working from nine to five. Thank you very much.

[D]

Okay, thanks.

There's one of the front numbers. Never went there. Yeah.

[C]

Thank you so much for your talk today, Claire.

[B]

You talked about like this image of economics being quite scary and unapproachable, I think especially for young girls. How do you think we can change.

[C]

People'S perception of economics to encourage especially young girls to pick it more for.

[B]

A level and for university? Thank you.

[C]

Yes, thank you.

[B]

So I currently work as a BA at a pharma company and I wanted to discuss maybe pivoting from one industry to another. And I wondered within economics in industry especially, are they set industries where people move from into economics? If I want to move from pharma to economics, how easy is that with no experience, things like that? I think after graduating and you sort of haven't done it for a level or university, you sort of like left to just, well, you can't do it anymore. So just sort of wondered how that goes in your or industries.

[D]

Great.

Who wants to go first? Who wants to do scary and unapproachable.

[C]

I can do it if you want. I think the answer to that is we should talk. We need to talk more about what economics is about. Right. So most like say most of the time people see it because there's a bit on the news where they talk about whether the stock market's gone up or down or exchange rates or whatever. I mean, sure, that is economics, but so is the stuff about the price of things. So is the stuff about why are some people rich and some people poor. Why are some countries rich and poor? Why is it that we have emissions where we do all the. We need to talk about economics in a way that just makes it more Interesting. And that's what it's all about. You know, I spent six months of my life developing a tax on sugar. Right. Because actually we really cared about that. That's just a really interesting thing to do. Right. Those sorts of things. And people don't really think that's what economics is. Economics is, is much more interesting than the sort of reputation that it has. But I think we need to sort of get out there and give examples and tell stories to your point about making it interesting. Tell a story, right. Tell the story of what economics is about and get that too. And maybe it is about financial education for people when they're younger. Maybe it's, you know, the examples that you do when you're learning how to do maths. Right. They're all really boring. We can make those really interesting and a bit more economicsy. You know, just stuff that allows people to see what it is about that's more interesting than the kind of very boring view of it that I think people have.

[B]

Having a diverse sort of profession is key. Right. Because then you can hear all those voices as opposed to just monologue.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And on the changing career, it's, you know, nothing in life is particularly easy, but you know, I know people that have done that. You know, a very good friend of mine, she was a journalist and I got to know her very well because it was when I was at EIU and she, she did actually her economics undergrad as a, almost most of it was on correspondence or part time. You know, I know other people that did their part time degrees at Birkbeck. When they did, you know, were doing a day job, she, I think she maybe did her masters and then she, when she moved back to the States, she did a PhD and she now works for a central bank. So, and she's my age and she got her PhD when I think she was about 40. So, you know, there's no set route to this, but it's never too late to change degrees or pursue a new thing if it really, really interests you.

[B]

I agree with that. And I think it's very easy to come into economics through a master's, even if your BA is a different one. And in my PhD studies I had colleagues that weren't.

That didn't have an undergraduate in economics and they were doing a PhD in economics. And of course the first year is sort of hard, but it's doable. And also, as you were saying in the private sector sector as well.

[D]

Okay, so look, if we, if people ask short questions, we can have one more Round. So two sentence questions because we have one more round. So there was one there and one there and one there.

It's very hard to see you. Oh, I think, yeah.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

I'll try to be as brief as possible.

[C]

So in fields traditionally shaped by man.

[B]

Such as economics, how can women lead.

[C]

And make an impact with.

[B]

About feeling pressured to conform to existing norms, not by like relying on stereotype, but by staying authentic to the way we naturally think and work, which can.

[C]

Be itself a source of difference.

[D]

Okay. If you can do it in really two sentences. I pointed to her before in the bluey gray jumper.

[A]

I just wanted to know how you would deal with like casual sexism in the workplace.

[B]

Because it's something that I've come across and it's so difficult.

[D]

Who will be able to.

Go on?

[B]

Thank you.

Spoken a lot about the importance of role models and if you can see it, you can be it.

[C]

And I'm wondering if you have specific.

[B]

Examples maybe at the bank of England or in other places you've worked out where policies or processes at the institution have complemented that. Because, you know, it's great that the MPC here has more women than men. Two deputy governors are women. But is that enough to see transformative change?

[D]

Okay, we're one in the middle somewhere. There, there. Oh, there, there. Yeah, sorry, there's other hands. We're not. We won't have enough. Maybe we can have a follow up question somehow.

[B]

Thank you very much for the panel talk today. And my question is rather simple. We often talk about retaining women in economics, but less about redesigning institutions so they no longer rely on masculine work patterns. Do you think the issue is women fit in or institution failing, evolve?

[D]

Okay, so we've got stereotypes, sexism in the workplace, our models and institutions. Who wants to take, maybe take one each? Somebody can take two if they want.

And we've got to be short here.

[B]

Sexism in the workplace, this is something. And going back to the grassroots. So this is something that the economics profession is finally tackling, or the economics profession, meaning the research profession. We're starting to talk about sexism in the workplace and sexual harassment. We've had major scandals last week. Larry Summer, economist, president of Harvard, he's been expelled from the American Economic Association. This couldn't have happened 10 years ago. So the profession is changing, the culture is changing. Recognizing that these things happen. Measuring sexual harassment in the workplace, in our profession and more widely in the economy is the first step. And we're doing that, I would say, since the MeToo movement there was an awareness that these things are not sporadic, but there's actually a systematic problem. And, and now I think we are in the second step, where we are actually, now that we know and understand the scale of the problem we're devising, now that we understand the world, what sort of policies and interventions can be implemented to.

Combat this important issue. And what the AA has done, the American Economic association, is an important signal to other harassers in the profession. So that even if it is just, you know.

Like a sign, and it's not a fine, say a monetary fine, but it's already a sign that things are changing, that things will not tolerate it, and it's setting the values of the profession very clearly. So those are important measures.

[D]

Yeah. And people are researching these things now as well. People used to say, isn't economics people working on harassment in the workplace and domestic violence and questions like that where people would say, oh no, no, that's sociology, you don't do that. But people are actually working on those things. So the culture has changed such that people are actually researching on those questions in economics with large scale data, bringing together some of the tools that Claire was emphasizing before, simple demand and supply tools to actually estimate models and stuff as well. Janet?

[A]

Yeah, I'll try and be really brief and I'm not sure I completely got the questions. And maybe I'm merging too between role models and institutions. Yeah, it's really helpful if you can find a role model. And obviously, you know, my opening question was all about the demonstration effect. There are certain things, they won't always be a role model. You know, for generations there have always been trailblazers. And many of you in this room will be trailblazers, I'm sure. And someone has to take the first step. And you know, when I joined my bank, I was the first female economist. And it only takes one and then it gets back to two. So we get back to where we started from. And I don't think you can change institutions from the outside. I think they have to be changed from within. You can't have external policies imposed on institutions. It has to be from within. That's where things need to be course corrected to some degree.

[C]

Yeah. What to add to this. So how so I think it was a question about in a sort of male dominated framework, how do you sort of operate like that? I don't think there's like a male framework and a female one, you know, but I think, you know, not thinking the same way as everyone else is your strength. Right. Like that is what you can bring to the party that no one else can do. So just be confident in it and do it and get feedback, but, you know, just be doing just. If you've got a different perspective, that is way more valuable than the four people that have the same perspective. Right. So I would just be really confident in that. Agree with everything. So on the institutional redesign, we're doing loads to do that. I think it's one of the reasons that the civil service, the bank, all that are getting better. So, you know, we have loads, for example, of people that don't work full time. They share the job. You know, it's like a real meaningful job that is shared up amongst people, things like that. We think quite hard about how to redesign roles to make it, make them available to a wider range of people. Look in on casual sexism. I think you call it out right when you see it, when it happens to you, you call out, you find the most effective way of doing that, which isn't always to sort of publicly do it. Maybe you do it privately, maybe you find other people that will be allies to you. The other thing I would say is it's quite helpful to explain to other people why what you see as sexism is sexism when other people might think it's not. So I would, you know, you sort of handle it in a thoughtful way, but you know, it's completely unacceptable. You don't have to put up with it. You caught out.

[D]

Okay, great, thanks. I'm afraid we've run out of time, but absolutely fantastic speakers. I think we should thank.

[A]

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