This week in Philadelphia, women are taking center stage at the Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA), the largest economics conference in the country. After the scandalous Economic Job Market Rumors study by Alice Wu revealed the horrifying depth and breadth of sexism in the field, finding, for example, the common adjectives used to describe female economists included “hot,” “gorgeous,” and “tits,” it should go without saying that this year’s panel at ASSA acknowledging gender disparities in economics takes on a new urgency.
The fact that women are vital to the progress of our economy should be a no-brainer, yet this is a fact too often ignored by those in power. Research by the Center for American Progress found that U.S. GDP would have been 11 percent lower in 2013 if women had not moved into the workforce during the prior 30 years. According to my own estimates for Pennsylvania, women’s daily contribution to the state’s GDP is over $845 million — just for one day.
The above excerpt was originally published in Medium.
Click here to view the full article.