Female Representation in the Academic Finance Profession

Abstract

We present new data on female representation in the academic finance profession. In our sample of finance faculty from the top-100 U.S. business schools during 2009–2017, only 16.0% are women. The gender imbalance manifests itself in at least three important ways. First, after controlling for research productivity, we find that women have less favorable career outcomes than men. They tend to have positions at lower-ranked institutions, are less likely to be tenured, and are paid less than men during the 2009-2017 sample period. Second, women tend to publish fewer papers than men. Third, women tend to have more female coauthors, which suggests smaller publication networks. However, time-series analysis suggests disappearing gender gaps in recent years.

Keywords: Tenure; Gender; Salary; Academic Finance Profession

JEL Classification: I23; J16; J24; J44