Women in Economics: The role of gendered advising practices at entry in the profession

Lucia will talk about a research based on a novel rich dataset covering ten cohorts of academic job market applicants to two top institutions in Italy.

Researchers collect information from the applicants’ CVs, conduct text analysis of reference letters using several Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques in order to measure gender differences in the style and content of the letters, and finally combine the resulting measures with information on the applicants’ subsequent labour market outcomes as extrapolated from the main online repositories. 

Results reveal that male and female candidates receive different support from their sponsors, with letters systematically differing in their style and content. 

This significantly affects candidates' placement to the point that, if female candidates were to receive the same recommendation letters as male candidates, the observed gender gaps in the main early career outcomes would decrease significantly or even be reverted.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in gender equality and social science.

Related links

• QSS seminar series
• Quantitative Social Science (QSS)
• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)
• Social Research Institute