Over International Women's Day this newspaper talked of the lack of paucity when it comes to women in senior economic roles and of the lack of women in senior academic roles. Male and female interests do differ, on average at least, and more female economists as full professors and so on would lead to questions of interest to women being researched.
Now, it is possible to simply dismiss this all; and as the sort of patriarchal guy that I am, it's very tempting. But we do have a specific problem here in the career structure for women. It's not confined to economics either, it's right across academia. The American version of it at least, and that's where a lot of the world's economic research gets done.
The problem is simply the timing of how academic careers work out. It's very difficult indeed to combine motherhood and an academic career. This is something that we should try to solve. Not just on the grounds of simple fairness, but there's also a longer-term point. It's really not a good idea for the future if all the really bright women -- those who can become professors -- are removed from the future gene pool. Therefore, we really would like to make it possible to both climb the academic heights and also be a mother.
But think of how the American academic world works. The 18-year-old goes to college, an American degree takes four years. Then the 22-year-old decides to do the PhD, the necessary start to a career in academia. That takes seven years. So, our now 29-year-old hopes to become a professor. That means getting a “tenure track” job, but then it takes a further seven years to actually gain that tenure.
Only with tenure is our academics now secure. They might not be a full professor yet, but they are a professor of some type, their job is secure and, unless they do something really silly, they can't be fired.
But by now our fledgling academic is 36 -- perhaps older if there's a year or two slippage. But this is also the first time that a female academic will be secure enough -- or even well paid enough -- to be able to have children if she so wishes ... 36 years old is just after fertility starts to fall off a cliff.
We haven't really designed a career path well for those who would like to combine children with their career. And this is a problem that affects all of American academia. Further, there are women who would like to have children and would be put off a career with this structure. So, that's the thing we should be changing, that career structure.
It is true that much of the current complaints about gender gaps and so on is misplaced. Men and women do, on average, have slightly different interests in life and thus different jobs are chosen, different packages of how to live a life. That means that different jobs are taken, different pay received, well, that's just one of those things. Choices have consequences.
But because a lot is misplaced does not mean that all is. This is one example of where there is indeed a real problem. The career structure in academia is exceedingly difficult to combine with that fairly natural desire of many to have a family. Therefore, we should change that career structure so as to make the joint enterprise of a life well lived possible.
It's also possible to point out that this is a necessary change too. For whatever else we might do about tempting women into academia -- outreach, training, encouragement, whatever -- this roadblock of a career structure and age is simply going to dissuade many from even thinking about it. It could even be that changing that process is not a sufficient (on its own) “change,” as more will also need to be done. But it is still a necessary one to undertake.
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.