A couple of days ago, I was talking with one of my new roommates about his job. Shawn works at an organization called ADVANCE, and our chat went something like this:
Renee: "ADVANCE? What do they do?"
Shawn: "They deal with inequality in higher education. As you get higher and higher in education, the proportion of women and underrepresented minorities gets smaller and smaller, until you're looking at tenured faculty and the proportion is 3%. So we try to figure out where the gaps are."
Renee: "Oh! Cool! What gaps?"
Shawn: "So if we're talking about tenure, for example. Many woman professors take time off to have kids, and if you take time off from your research, your tenure clock restarts. So women are thinking, 'Is it worth pursuing this career if I'm going to have to start over again when I have a kid?' The fact that there are so few women and minorities in tenured positions-- part of it is because of blatant sexism, sure. But a lot of it is because of systematic flaws like this that just make it harder for them to achieve."
At this point, I got to thinking about a lecture delivered by one of my favorite econ profs, Ann Velenchik. She was exploring the question, Why do girls in developing world get less education than boys do?
She parsed out all the potential reasons, including:
A. Education-as-consumption reasons:
1. Girls get less inherent satisfaction out of school than boys do (as if!)
2. Parents get less inherent satisfaction out of educated daughters than educated sons
B. Education-as-investment reasons:
1. The opportunity cost of schooling is greater for daughters than sons; if children aren't in school, they can work. Or, they can replace their parents at home so that the parents can work, and in agricultural homes, girls are a closer replacement for their mothers than boys are for their fathers.
2. The investment returns stay in the family for less time, as sons earn money that goes back to the family, but girls marry and contribute to the husband's family.
She didn't come down on any one reason; the point of the lecture wasn't to come up with an answer. The point was to get people thinking of schooling as a rational, economics-driven decision, instead of a sexist, values-driven one. (In a sign of what was to come, she kicked off the lecture by stating, "I'm an economist, so we're going to be thinking about this issue as economists do.") If we think of girls schooling as a rational, economics-driven decision, we can solve it with economics. For example, the Progresa program in Mexico, which gives aid to poor families, has subsidies for families if they send daughters to school. (There is a smaller amount attached to sending the sons to school). The program attempts to neutralize the economic decision for families.
If we think of girls schooling as a values-driven decision, we solve it by passing laws that make it mandatory for girls to attend school, sending Angelina Jolie on a speaking tour, etc.
In an infamous speech, then-president of Harvard Larry Summers was trying to take the same analytical approach to tackle the question, Why are there so few female tenured faculty in the math and sciences?
He also parsed out several hypotheses, including:
1. Becoming tenured faculty requires insane hours-- a sacrifice difficult for women who want to have kids
2. There are fewer women with off-the-charts brainpower
3. Discrimination on the part of universities
As you probably know, the academic community exploded in the aftermath of this speech. Many professionals in math and engineering were offended that someone in his position would imply that women and men have different levels of ability, and women faculty at Harvard were frustrated at what appeared to be a lack of support from their president. Summers resigned the following year.
In fact, what Larry was trying to do was apply a technical framework to tackling what he agreed was a serious problem. In a sign of his intentions, Larry kicked off the speech by saying, "I think it's important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation."
I think Prof. Velenchik did a better job of encouraging her listeners to think like economists because she didn't come down on any one answer. Summers, on the other hand, stated outright that he believes in reasons #1 and #2, and was completely dismissive of #3. This took attention away from his "Let's be analytical" perspective and focused attention on his "These are my opinions" perspective.
If you're interested, you can find the Summers speech here, and listen to Prof. Velenchik's lecture by looking up "Wellesley College" in the ITunes store.
Addendum: ...And, if Obama were to realize that many Americans are continuing to drive gas guzzlers out of economic-based reasons, not just values-based reasons, he would offer an incentive for them to switch. Oh! wait, he just did:
"The CARS program is intended to encourage consumers who own an older, gas guzzler to purchase or lease a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. In doing so, it is expected to give the auto industry a sales boost, while at the same time transitioning participating car owners to thriftier vehicles and thereby reducing national fuel consumption...Purchased vehicles may be from domestic or foreign brands, through participating dealers."
