Fifty Years of Breakthroughs and Barriers: Women in Economics, Policy, and Leadership

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162241292175
• Author: Francine D. Blau,Lisa M. Lynch
• Date: 01 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Policy Translation

ANNALS, AAPSS, 711, January 2024 225

DOI: 10.1177/00027162241292175

Fifty Years of

Breakthroughs

and Barriers:

Women in

Economics,

Policy, and

Leadership

By

FRANCINE D. BLAU

and

LISA M. LYNCH

1292175ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYFIFTY YEARS OF BREAKTHROUGHS AND BARRIERS

research-article2024

We provide an overview of what has happened for

women over the past 50 years as they worked to break

through professional barriers in economics, policy, and

institutional leadership. We chart the progress of

women in higher education at the college level and

beyond and then examine women’s representation at

the upper levels of academia, government, law, medi-

cine, and management. We begin our description of

trends in 1972, when Title IX was enacted to prohibit

sex-based discrimination in federally funded educa-

tional programs. The data paint a picture of considera-

ble progress but also persistent inequities. We then go

on to consider possible explanations for the continuing

gender differences and some of the empirical evidence

on the factors identified.

Keywords: labor economics; economics of gender;

labor force trends; education; discrimina-

tion; women leadership; glass ceiling

In 1976, Rebecca “Becky” Blank graduated

college as an economics major from the

University of Minnesota; despite having been

told after taking a career aptitude test that she

“would make a great secretary,” she was part of

a rising wave of women who were completing

college in the U.S. In an era when only 12 per-

cent of economics majors were women, she had

Correspondence: lisalynch@brandeis.edu

Francine D. Blau is Frances Perkins Professor of

Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of eco-

nomics emeritus at Cornell University. She has received

the IZA Prize in Labor Economics and the Jacob

Mincer Award from the Society of Labor Economists.

She has written extensively on gender issues, wage ine-

quality, and immigration.

Lisa M. Lynch is Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social

and Economic Policy at Brandeis University’s Heller

School for Social Policy Management. At Brandeis, she

was provost, interim president, and dean of the Heller

School. She studies racial and gender disparities in the

labor market and the impact of organizational innova-

tion.

226 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

demonstrated her exceptionalism by choosing to major in economics; then, in

1983, when only 15 percent of doctoral degrees in economics were awarded to

women, she completed her PhD in that field. Her journey of breakthroughs and

exceptionalism continued when she became an assistant professor at Princeton

University at a time when only 14 percent of assistant professors in economics

were women. In 1989, she moved to Northwestern University, where she

received tenure at a time when fewer than 5 percent of full professors in econom-

ics were women. Her academic scholarship on the determinants of labor supply

and unemployment, the role of gender and race in labor markets (including an

impactful review piece with Altonji [Blank and Altonji 1999]), and inequality

more broadly have changed how these issues are understood by academics and

policymakers alike.

In 1997, she had the opportunity to put her knowledge into direct policy prac-

tice when she was appointed a member of President Clinton’s Council of

Economic Advisers. It came as no surprise to those who knew her when, in 1999,

she was selected to become the inaugural dean of the Ford School at the

University of Michigan. This position leveraged her scholarly achievements and

policy interests and allowed her to develop new skills in management and fund-

raising. In 2009, she returned to Washington, DC, to work in the Commerce

Department, where she would later serve as acting secretary at a time when only

about a third of cabinet positions were held by women. As Becky would joke, the

career aptitude test turned out to have been right when she finally did become a

secretary—Secretary of Commerce.

In 2013, when only 18 percent of universities with “very high research activity”

had a woman president, Becky Blank showed us again what it meant to be a

breakthrough leader by becoming chancellor of the University of Wisconsin.

Figure 1 provides a visual description of Blank’s professional career and many of

the exceptional contributions that Becky made in economics, policy, and leader-

ship at some of our most important institutions.

Rebecca Blank’s remarkable life in academic discovery and public service

inspires the rest of this article, which assesses what has happened for women over

the past 50 years as they worked to break through professional barriers in eco-

nomics, policy, and institutional leadership. We begin with measurement—some-

thing Becky advocated in her work, charting the progress of women in higher

education at the college level and beyond and then examining women’s represen-

tation at the upper levels of academia, government, law, medicine, and manage-

ment. Our analysis begins in 1972, when Title IX was enacted, prohibiting

sex-based discrimination in federally funded educational programs. The data

paint a picture of considerable progress but also persistent inequities. We then

go on to consider possible explanations for the continuing gender differences and

some of the empirical evidence about the factors identified.

NOTE: We are grateful for the helpful comments of Leslie McGranahan, Diane Whitmore

Schanzenbach, and participants at the Authors’ Conference in Memory and Honor of Rebecca

M. Blank, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, February 22–23, 2024. We thank David Titus for

excellent research assistance.