Yellen Says U.S. Minorities Are Being Driven Away From Economics
Yellen Says U.S. Minorities Are Being Driven Away From Economics
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economics profession has failed to attract talented black Americans and other racial minorities, and often created a hostile work environment for those who do enter the field, according to former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
“Our focus is not on whether there is a race problem in economics,” Yellen told the American Economic Association meeting in San Diego on Friday. “That’s been abundantly documented.” Data show “minorities are significantly under represented. They reveal little or no progress in recent decades,” she told the annual summit of economists.
The AEA has sought to make the profession more inclusive for minorities and women in recent years, though Yellen, a champion of diversity in her years at the Fed, as well as other economists on the panel described the efforts as inadequate and they described a pattern of discrimination they faced in their careers.
“All too many minorities have suffered harassment and discrimination during their careers,” Yellen said. “Practices and patterns of behavior that are widespread in the profession are harming the progress of minorities.”
An Ohio State University professor, Trevon Logan, said he had been called a “boy” when he had attended the AEA meeting in an earlier year. “My advice, is do not call anyone in the profession who is an adult by a child, and particularly do not call anyone who is an African American a boy or a girl.”
Marie T. Mora, University of Missouri-St. Louis professor who is Hispanic, said her work had been belittled at a former workplace by a colleague who suggested that her accomplishments, such as work on books, should not be considered as part of the granting of tenure.
Randall Akee, University of California-Los Angeles professor and a Hawaiian, said he had been discouraged from research into racial discrimination because such work wasn’t considered serious research by other economists.
About 5% of bachelor’s degrees in economics went to African Americans and just 3% of Ph.D.s in 2016-2017, according to the AEA’s committee looking at the status of minorities. Numbers were low for all minorities, and the economic field was lower than other so-called STEM --science, technology, engineering and math -- fields.
“Such discrimination wastes talent,” said Yellen, the president-elect of AEA. “It is also deeply unfair.”
The association has put a high priority on fostering changes, she said.
“It is our collective obligation to change the culture in the profession,” she said. “We need to make it more inclusive.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Matthews in Atlanta at smatthews@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alister Bull at abull7@bloomberg.net, Sarah McGregor, Robert Jameson
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