The Women in Economics Index - Monitoring Women Economists' Representation in Leadership Positions

Abstract

We contribute to the research on gender representation in economics by documenting the share of women among economists in a variety of leadership positions in the academic, but also in the private and public sectors, both globally and by region. For the years 2019 to 2023, we find women economists’ representation overall to be low in all sectors and no clear-cut trends over time. In academia, we find women’s representation to be highest in Africa and Oceania, an observation that previous studies could not show so far as they analysed global top departments and thus mechanically focused on North America and Europe. Also for the public sector, we highlight significant regional discrepancies.