The Position of Women in UK Academic Economics

This paper reports the results of the Royal Economic Society Women's Committee 1998 survey on the gender balance in UK academic economics. In 1998, female representation was 4% of professors, 11 % of senior lecturers or readers, 17% of permanent lecturers, 28% of fixed term lecturers, and 33% of PhD/research students. The main growth in female representation since 1996 has been in fixed term lectureships and in PhD/research students (a 5 percentage point increase for each). We suggest reasons for the low representation of women in academic economics, and also argue that it is a cause for concern.