Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession

The Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) has served female economists by promoting their careers and monitoring their progress through the profession since its founding as a standing committee of the American Economic Association in 1971.CSWEP has been involved in a wide range of activities: In 1972, CSWEP fielded the first survey of economics departments regarding the gender composition of faculty and, since 1993, has surveyed some 250 departments annually with findings reported in the AEA Papers and Proceedings and reprinted in the CSWEP annual report.CSWEP organizes mentoring programs that serve several hundred economists annually.These include the CeMENT mentoring workshops for junior women, which have been shown to improve outcomes in randomized controlled trial studies.CSWEP offers one CeMENT program designed for faculty in PhD-granting institutions or research-oriented nonacademic positions and another for faculty in non-PhD-granting institutions.At the annual AEA/ASSA meetings, we host mentoring breakfasts and networking receptions as well as a variety of career development roundtables and panels.We also host career development panels and mentoring events at the annual Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management meeting and the four regional economics association conferences as well as a graduate mentoring event serving some 35 students at the Southern Economic Association meeting.CSWEP provides professional opportunities to junior women through competitive-entry paper sessions at the annual AEA/ASSA meetings and the regional economic association meetings.CSWEP also endeavors to raise awareness of the challenges unique to women's careers in economics and best practices for increasing diversity in economics.To recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of women, CSWEP awards the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award annually for furthering the status of women in the economics profession and the Elaine Bennett Prize annually for fundamental contributions to economics by a woman within ten years of the PhD, adjusted for leaves.CSWEP disseminates information on women in economics, posts professional opportunities, and promotes career development through the CSWEP website and CSWEP News, which successfully moved from three annual issues to four in 2020.CSWEP News articles offer valuable career development advice for both men and women, and subscriptions have grown to over 3,300 subscribers.Our website provides resources for economists seeking to create a more inclusive profession.In addition to these regular activities, CSWEP is engaged in two major research efforts to improve the status of women in the economics profession.First, in collaboration with the Committee on Equity, Diversity, and Professional Conduct (CEDPC), CSWEP submitted and received a multiyear grant from Co-Impact for $995,000 in December 2023.Titled "Improving the Climate in Economics," the grant allows us to embark on several new initiatives ranging from department chair workshops, bystander training, and graduate student workshops to engage in level setting, providing additional support to our mid-career workshop, a women in leadership workshop, and creating best practice videos.Our first event is "Best and Worst Practices in Economics Departments: A Working Session for Chairs" at the AEA meetings in January 2025.We are excited that over 100 department chairs have indicated that they plan to attend the workshop.Second, CSWEP's partnership with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) on a million-dollar consortium, awarded in 2022, continues.The grant supports research that tests, replicates, and scales interventions designed to increase women's representation in economics and mathematics.CSWEP organized a panel discussion at the AEA meetings in January 2024 on "Working to Change the Climate in Economics."Anusha Chari presented some of the early results from the SSRC-supported interventions to increase women's participation in economics and to improve the climate.We have organized a session at the 2025 meetings to showcase new research coming out of the CSWEP-SSRC consortium.* Notes: Entry and exit change the population universe.Any known PhD programs are considered members of the population.Any nonrespondents were imputed first with UAQ survey responses and, if those are unavailable, with linear interpolation.For five-year intervals, simple averages are reported.* Notes: For each category, the table gives women as a percentage of total.For the five-year intervals, simple averages of annual percentages are reported.