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Gendered careers: women economists in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Marcella Corsi
  • Carlo D'Ippoliti
  • Giulia Zacchia

Abstract

Recent reforms of the Italian university system introduced a centralized national qualification competition (called ASN), necessary for accessing all academic positions in the country. Following a well-known international trend, the new mechanism is founded on rigid standardized indexes of “scientific productivity” based on bibliometric indicators. In economics, women’s lower success rate (35%) compared to men’s (44%) is often connected to lower productivity. We provide evidence matching all candidates’ CVs with their record of publications on EconLit, showing that women’s typical career profiles, e.g. in terms of type of publications, topics and methods of inquiry, were penalized regardless of scientific productivity. Our work aims not only at documenting, through a large scale natural experiment, the causes of the underrepresentation of women in academia (especially in top positions) and within economics, but also at raising the issue of new incentives and constrains that increasingly push women to uniform their careers and their research interests to those of their men colleagues.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcella Corsi & Carlo D'Ippoliti & Giulia Zacchia, 2017. "Gendered careers: women economists in Italy," Working Papers CEB 17-003, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/244040
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Gamage, Danula K. & Kavetsos, Georgios & Mallick, Sushanta & Sevilla, Almudena, 2020. "Pay Transparency Initiative and Gender Pay Gap: Evidence from Research-Intensive Universities in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13635, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2017. "Pay, Rank and Job Satisfaction amongst Academic Economists in the UK," Discussion Papers 17/17, Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Karen Mumford & Cristina Sechel, 2020. "Pay and Job Rank among Academic Economists in the UK: Is Gender Relevant?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 82-113, March.
    4. Giulia Zacchia, 2017. "Memoria di un'inguaribile combattente: Irma Adelman (In memoriam of an incurable resilient: Irma Adelman)," Moneta e Credito, Economia civile, vol. 70(279), pages 233-238.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    women economists; research paradigms; Italy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • B54 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Feminist Economics
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics

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