There is no shortage of white men in economics. That is clear enough from a glance down the very male, very white list of winners of the discipline’s Nobel memorial prize. There are a few exceptions: the black Caribbean-born scholar Sir Arthur Lewis won in 1979; the first woman to win, Elinor Ostrom, did not do so until 2009, astonishingly late. Other non-white, non-male winners are few and far between.
Even now, away from the pinnacle of the profession, things are scarcely more encouraging. Academic economics still appears to be an unattractive environment for women. I’ve written before about the fact that while many stereotypically male-studied subjects such as science and mathematics now have large numbers of female students, economics has not managed to achieve the same progress.
Women make up 56 per cent of the UK-domiciled undergraduate population, but just 32 per cent of economics undergraduates are women. That proportion has fallen slightly, not risen, in recent years.