The past few years have been challenging for anyone employing fewer women or under-represented minorities than white men called John. Bosses responded, at least at first; according to jobs platform LinkedIn, the seventh fastest growing job title between 2019 and 2023 was “vice-president of diversity and inclusion”. And within economics, concerns about maleness and paleness triggered a wave of new research.
A new working paper is part of that trend, though it suggests there should be another round of reflection. Anna Stansbury and Kyra Rodriguez of MIT look at the “class gap” among US PhD-holders in science, social science engineering and health. One might hope that having “Dr” in front of one’s name would be enough to wash away any childhood disadvantage. But it seems not.
Academia might seem like a niche profession to study, and . . . yes it is. But it has the advantage that outcomes are quantifiable, with the top prize being tenure at a well-ranked university. And the authors argue that if academia has a problem, then other elite occupations where productivity is harder to measure and networking is even more important probably have it worse.