NBC
Study: Economic policy could change as more women become economists
What they found was surprising: Despite similar training and background in economic principles, male and female economists tended to hold sharply different views about some of the biggest and most hotly debated economic issues.
For example, female economists were more likely to say employers should provide health insurance and that income distribution should be more equal. They also were more likely to disagree with the use of educational vouchers.
Women also were far more likely to conclude that job opportunities for men and women are not equal, and that specifically the economic profession favors men over women.
“We were a little surprised to see that there were these striking differences,” May said.
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Ha. That’s not economics. That public policy.
Dusty on October 4, 2012 at 10:19 PM
Maybe they should check to see if those degrees are in home economics.
Dusty on October 4, 2012 at 10:21 PM
So women want more paternalism from government. So much for the strong independent woman.
/
CW on October 4, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Sammich makin’ and vacuuming degrees for all!
lorien1973 on October 4, 2012 at 10:25 PM
Oh, gag me.
Actually, women who advocate employer-paid health insurance are not doing so as “economists” (who gives a flip what an economist thinks about this?), they are doing it as people with private views.
J.E. Dyer on October 4, 2012 at 10:30 PM
More proof “economics” is in no way a science.
strictnein on October 4, 2012 at 10:30 PM
It took a study to figure this out?
How about reading a little history – from Eve, onward?
OldEnglish on October 4, 2012 at 10:31 PM
I.e., women are more likely to be liberal than men. That’s not news.
alwaysfiredup on October 4, 2012 at 10:38 PM
…aaaaaaaand done.
Living4Him5534 on October 4, 2012 at 10:43 PM
I don’t think many economists on either side of the aisle actually support attaching health insurance to employment. Both sides want it detached.
Genetically, women want the government to replace beta males so that they can go chase after alpha males without any consequences whatsoever. Government is a replacement for what marriage used to be.
ninjapirate on October 4, 2012 at 10:48 PM
And that pretty much sums it up in the first comment. This is just another advocacy piece. Move along…
Dirt McGirt on October 4, 2012 at 10:51 PM
If you’ve ever been inside an economics department the illusion established by great 21st century economic minds like Samuelson, Hayek, Friedman, and Keynes (like him or not), you know just how sad it is.
In the economics department I attend there is one “economics” paper in the works, the rest are all sociology. Most economics departments simply conduct sociology research with econometrics.
Economics is another field where liberals are taking over the lexicon (much in the way Jeff Goldstein suggests) and defining the equivalent of an Overton window.
On a personal note I’ll be doing my grad work in statistics. Economics is just too depressing. The morons.
WeekendAtBernankes on October 4, 2012 at 11:14 PM
So more women economists will mean that the laws of economics, such as supply and demand, will be changing?
Even the Chinese Commies have come to realize the basic laws of economics are immutable. Which is why they are increasingly ignoring and rejecting failed Marxist socialist economic “theory” in favor of economic theory that actually works, free market economics.
The US Democratic Party, OTOH, is increasingly rejecting free markets and basing their economic policies on socialist Marxist economics, bleeding and crippling the economy in the process of trying to further mug the “rich” of ill-gotten unfairly acquired gains so they can “spread the wealth around” in the interest of “social justice”.
farsighted on October 4, 2012 at 11:16 PM
Women want kids to remain trapped in lousy schools?
Who knew?
BuckeyeSam on October 4, 2012 at 11:19 PM
For Marxists they are the same thing. For Marxists everything is economics, of the Marxist kind. For Marxists politics is economics. For Marxists history is economics. For Marxists all human behavior is economics.
farsighted on October 4, 2012 at 11:22 PM
BTW so many economics students and professors are anti-liberty and anti-enlightenment that it boggles the mind. Call themselves economists and spend their lives using econometric techniques to “prove” their pet liberal beliefs. Frankly the title doesn’t mean much anymore.
WeekendAtBernankes on October 4, 2012 at 11:33 PM
If it they are doing popularity contests of different policies then they are not doing science.
pedestrian on October 5, 2012 at 12:24 AM
I like how NBC has “lite” at the end of the URL. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the subject matter, but it sure is fitting. Also, the comments are ridiculously touchy-feely.
Waggoner on October 5, 2012 at 12:50 AM
First thing they taught me in my course of study of Economics was that we, as economists, do not study normative concerns, but rather positive outcomes.
That is, we study not what ought to be, but rather, what is.
Those are not questions for economists.
JohnGalt23 on October 5, 2012 at 12:59 AM
Math is hard. Once you take that out of the equation, economics is so simple that even women can understand it.
logis on October 5, 2012 at 1:05 AM
Economists don’t set policy. Even if women economists disagree with men economists, so what?
Steven Den Beste on October 5, 2012 at 1:07 AM
Just what we needed – more progressive economists.
Rebar on October 5, 2012 at 2:38 AM
Just because women analyze ‘economics’ doesn’t mean reality changes. Socialism can’t work long term because (as a woman once said) eventually you run out of other people’s money.
GardenGnome on October 5, 2012 at 8:19 AM