Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18066
Authors: Lorenzo Ductor; Anja Prummer
Abstract: We consider the implications of gender homophily in Economics, which has persisted despite the significant increase in women in the field. As women remain underrepresented, gender homophily may serve as a constraint in collaboration. It could also lead to less gender diverse co-author teams than may be optimal in terms of generating high quality research papers. We show that gender homophily neither constrains collaboration nor prevents higher quality output. This implies that a mere increase in women in Economics will not be sufficient to erase existing gender inequalities.
Keywords: homophily; collaboration; diversity
JEL Codes: D85; J16; O30
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| gender homophily (J16) | collaboration among economists (A12) |
| gender homophily (J16) | number of collaborators for women (J16) |
| increasing female representation (J16) | number of female coauthors (J16) |
| gender diversity in research teams (J16) | quality of research output (L15) |
| male teams (Z22) | quality of articles (L15) |
| female teams (Z22) | citations (A14) |
| gender composition (J16) | research quality (C90) |