Seeking the “Missing Women” of Economics with the Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge

Abstract

Economics is among the most popular undergraduate majors, especially in top colleges and universities. However, even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one, and overall there are about 2.5 males to every female economics major. We discuss why women major in economics less than men and describe a project to increase the number of female economics majors. The Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE) Challenge was a randomized controlled trial, with 20 treatment and 68 control schools, that we ran for one year in AY 2015-16 to evaluate the impact of light-touch interventions to recruit and retain female economics majors. Treatment schools received funding, guidance, and access to networking with other treatment schools to implement programs such as providing better information to incoming students about the application of economics, exposing students to role models, providing mentoring, and updating course content and pedagogy. Using 2001-2021 data from the NCES-Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) on graduating undergraduates (BAs), we find that UWE was effective in increasing the fraction of female BAs who majored in economics relative to men in liberal arts colleges. Large universities did not show an impact of the treatment, although those that implemented their own RCTs showed moderate success in encouraging more women to major in economics. We discuss what we believe worked in the UWE program and speculate on the reasons for differential treatment impact.