By Laura Harvey
On the 7th July we welcomed a group of young female secondary school students to UEA to participate in an event specifically designed to nurture and inspire future economists. Supported by the Royal Economic Society with the aim of increasing diversity in the profession, the programme was packed. The girls took part in activities tailored to provoke their interest in the subject, and mini-lectures were delivered by external experts.
The event was kicked off by Head of School, Emiliya Lazarova, who invited participants to complete a short survey to gauge their initial perceptions of the discipline. The results were revealing. When asked for three words to describe economics, the most popular response was ‘markets’. ‘Money’ and ‘choices’ came a close second, and in third place were ‘supply’ and ‘firms’. Notably, ‘Behaviour’ and ‘Society’ had the lowest response rate. Even at this early stage it is evident that perceptions of economics are skewed towards the financial. In the second exercise this misconception was reinforced as students were asked to describe an economist. Common retorts included words such as rich, interesting and banker. This start unequivocally highlighted misconceptions aligned with other comparable events (see Crawford, Davies & Smith, 2018)).
Emiliya then spoke about the importance of the female voice in the discipline; outlining how Economists directly influence decision-making and how diverse perspectives are vital to this process. Afterwards, Victoria Bateman (Director of Studies in Economics at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge) took the podium to speak about her book ‘The Sex Factor’. This is a book which details and discusses the peripheral and silenced role designated to women in the history of western economic development. Much of this marginalisation, Bateman argues, is embedded within the narrative of traditional economic theory and she offered an alternative perspective on the discipline.
Bahar Ghezelayagh (Lecturer in Financial Economics) then entertained with a session that focused on debunking economic myths. Students were invited to participate in an auction for 1 hour of private tutoring by Bahar – the winning bid was a whopping £210! A chance to tableau the nature of the winners curse after a starting bid of only £30.
Rupal Patel from the Bank of England, a Senior Economist in the Financial Stability division, introduced the different functions of the Bank and detailed a little about their response to the current crisis. Negative interest rates particularly engaged the attention of the students! If the Bank of England were to set negative interest rates it would be the first time in history this has ever happened!
Our final key-note speaker was Professor Denise Osborn, RES General Secretary. Often labelled the ‘first woman’, she spoke about the history of women in the economics profession and her own experiences throughout her long and impressive career. She deliberated the issue of stagnant numbers of female undergraduate students in economics. Considering the figure below, it is clear that the proportion of female students has remained constant at around 30% whilst other comparable subjects such as Finance and Business students see at least 45% female cohorts. This figure also undermines one of the most popular explanations for the gender discrepancy: that female students are discouraged by the maths. Given that the number of female students on Undergraduate maths degrees is almost 40%, this clearly cannot be the primary issue.
The morning event was concluded with breakout sessions led by current undergraduate students where they were free to ask them anything and everything about studying Economics and being a student at UEA.
The afternoon was dedicated to the teachers. Teachers are integral to decision making at a secondary level, and these periods were dedicated to challenging common misconceptions about the subject: Notably that to pursue a degree in economics you must have studied A-level maths.
Fabio Arico, our teaching director, then wrapped up the event by examining student self-efficacy. All concluded that the occasion was a success on two counts: economically re-educating prospective female students and achieving a successful virtual initiative necessitated by the Covid crisis. Feedback from both the student and teacher sessions was extremely positive and we look forward to developing the WinECO initiative further next year.
References
“Why do so few women study economics? Evidence from England” by C. Crawford, N.M. Davies, and S.Smith (2018)