Special Issue: Cuadernos de Economía: “Gender differences in academic career of economics in Brazil”

Authors: Maria Dolores Montoya Diaz, Fabiana Rocha, Paula Pereda, Liz Matsunaga, Renata Narita, and Bruna Pugialli Borges 

Authorship defined by random order is available here.

Abstract:  The aim of this paper is to study the under-representation of women in Economics in Brazil by analyzing the evolution of their academic careers and their participation in the two main national Economics conferences. The results are similar to those observed in developed countries. It is more difficult for women to progress through tenure and, therefore, the pipeline also leaks in Brazilian universities. There is also persistent gender differences in the choice of research fields. Women mostly conduct research in Labor, Health and Demographic Economics , often known as “female” fields. 

Submited article: “Are women less persistent? Evidence from submissions to a nationwide meeting of Economics”

Authors: Paula Pereda, Liz Matsunaga, Maria Dolores Montoya Diaz, Bruna Pugialli Borges, Jesus Mena-Chalco, Fabiana Rocha, Renata Narita, and Clara Brenck.

Abstract: Female underrepresentation in high-profile career positions has relevant impacts on firms’ outcomes and public policies. In the academic profession, women’s participation decreases as they evolve in their career. To understand the lack of women in the field of economics in Brazil, we investigate the decision to submit papers to the largest conference in the country (Brazilian Meeting of Economics), as an important achievement in the profession. We explore a novel panel dataset of researchers and match them with web-scraped data of their résumés to test gender differences in the probability of submitting an article one year after having an article (same or new) rejected in the previous year. Our findings suggest that women desist 5.9 percentage points more than men when facing rejection. We also find evidence that younger women give up more and that the quality of the undergraduate program matters to determine the difference in the desistance rate between men and women. We argue that higher quality institutions might self-select women who are more competitive.