News Overview

We are happy to announce this week's Jour Fixe with a talk “Women in STEM” by Prof. Christiane Schwieren, Equal Opportunities Commissioner at Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­si­ty and expert in Behavioural and Experimental Economics at Alfred-Weber-Institute for Economics. As usual, the Jour Fixe will take place on Friday, February 10, 2023 at 1:30 pm. You are welcome to join the meeting either in person or via Zoom.

Abstract: All STEM fields in German universities suffer from a difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified women – starting at the student level, but getting worse the higher up in the academic hierarchy we look. Re­search on gender differences in preferences, using both experimental methods and analyses of panel data, can shed some light on the mechanisms leading to this. There is also evidence available on the success of certain policies that have been implemented to recruit more women for STEM careers. Behavioral economics is well suited to suggest evidence-based interventions for the case that the current situation does not reflect preferences well. Libertarian paternalist or “nudging” interventions have been successfully used in a diversity of settings to counter especially (unconsciously) discriminatory hiring practices. However, we are everywhere still far from gender equality, which leads to the question what factors have been overlooked or not tackled sufficiently so far. Among them are both the negative effects of being in a “token” position as a women on women, but also male reactions to increasing gender equality. Identity economics offers insights into these aspects and can help to develop new, structural solutions.