Economic Woman

This has nothing to do with economics or feminism, but you might enjoy it anyway. My internet video column is up over at The Tyee. It’s about ultra high speed photography, and I think I’ve found some exceptionally cool videos this month. Here’s one to pull you in:

And with that, I’m off to read me some statistics.

While preparing my post on advice for undergraduates, I came across Daniel S. Hamermesh’s 2004 essay of advice for young female PhDs. This isn’t really my area of expertise, but it was an interesting read. Here are two ways in which young women have to work harder than men to make it to tenure:

University administrators love committees that are balanced by gender; but the relative supply of women, especially from economics departments, is small. [...] The time spent on them eats up research time and usually generates minimal credit in your tenure decision. Requests like this are another form of sexual exploitation.

Readers and tenure referees tend to assume that a young economist who coauthors with a more senior economist, especially a thesis advisor, is doing the dirty work rather than providing the central innovation of the study. This is regrettably especially true when the junior person is a woman and the senior economist is male.

Women get a lot of advice on avoiding sexism – it ranges from well-meaning and insightful observations like these, to patronizing double standards (“don’t walk home alone”) and meaningless restrictions on our freedom (“don’t wear that tank top”). Most if it is pretty ineffective, but also relatively harmless.

Still, let’s not lose sight of a larger point: the people best equipped to combat sexism are usually men in positions of power. I imagine that it’s tough, early in your career, to turn down an administrative position or tell your supervisor that you don’t want to co-author a paper with him. Older, male professors, on the other hand, might have time to spend mentoring a younger professor, or social capital to burn as the voice of reason on a tenure committee. Making sure that the field is safe and welcoming for women is also their job.

Feminist blogs are tackling gendered aspects of food price increases. To be honest, I’m still working my way through technical points that have been posted on the economics side – I knew I had reached a new level of geek the other week when I enthusiastically clicked on a link titled “the problem with fertilizer” – but this post from Feminocracy, based loosely around two links, has helped me frame my thinking a little bit.

The first point I’ve taken from it is the disproportionate impact of food price increases on women in the developing world. When food is more expensive, some women may be the last to eat in their family. They are also likely to work longer hours in the informal sector, which doesn’t provide benefits or minimum wage.

The second point that finally hit home is the magnitude and consequences of grocery price increases in the US. I wonder if economists have been too quick to dismiss 10-30% increases in staples. Certainly the West enjoys remarkably cheap and plentiful food, but for those already on the margin this has got to have welfare effects.

That got me wondering about Canadian prices. I know that bread is a little bit more expensive, and I also know that my monthly grocery bill has changed barely a cent since January. But I couldn’t tell you how much I paid for eggs last week – I tend to concentrate on prices relevant to my decision, i.e. this brand vs. that brand vs. a substitute product – so that might just be increasing thriftiness. Anyway, it looks like my first instincts are right: if CP can be trusted, we haven’t seen anything like the US price increases, likely thanks to the strong dollar. Thank you Alberta – at least our laid-off auto workers can buy cheap eggs.