Why are women a minority in the Economy? The person responsible for answering this and other questions is Luiza Nassif, currently a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, in New York. With a degree and master's degree from UFRJ, with a PhD from the New School for Social Research, also in New York, Luiza develops studies in the area of ​​gender and feminist economics. 

Female representation

Luiza Nassif comments on a well-known phenomenon in the area, which is the leak pipe line , that is, from graduation until reaching the position of professor, the number of women decreases as we advance, as the amount of water decreases when passing through a leaky pipe.

The researcher talks about a vicious cycle in Economics: “ the lack of representation of women in economics means that the majority of professors are men, the majority of examples, the majority of books and papers are written by men ”. Luiza explains that this creates a strange feeling, a certain lack of incentive for women to believe that they can actually reach those positions.

The result, therefore, is a mostly male environment, without many female representatives in high positions. And, according to Luiza, having more female teachers is fundamental: “for me it was very important to have a woman as my first teacher, of Macroeconomics I, Margarida Gutierrez. That was important to me in that environment.”

Culture of the area

If we look back, we realize how the idea that women have less appreciation for mathematics or quantitative science is socially constructed from the beginning. The researcher even argues that women's participation in Mathematics is greater than when compared to Economics. 

In a male-dominated environment, it is common for women to not feel comfortable asking questions at a seminar or in a classroom, for example. Furthermore, when the scenario is reversed, and there is a woman presenting a seminar, she is often questioned more than men, with more aggressive questions and less related to the topic in question.

“There are stories of teacher friends who are teaching and the student keeps asking, asking, and, in fact, disagreeing with what she is saying. Until another student says 'she's right'. It is necessary to hear from a male authority, it is no use hearing from a professor with a doctorate. Gender authority is much stronger. It hurts ,” reports Luiza.

Over time, these episodes accumulate and begin to generate questions, such as “what am I doing here? Why am I doing Economics? Why do I try so hard to stay in this field that doesn’t value me?”, comments the researcher.

What does the Economy lose from this?

The answer ranges from the choice of topics covered in the area, through the forms of approach and culminating in economic theory itself. In neoclassical theory, for example, the most used in the field, the element of analysis is the individual. And, in many ways, this individual was defined to be Western, white and male, according to Luiza Nassif. 

“This is important because the hypotheses we put into our models affect the results. The way you analyze why we have a certain inequality depends on your models and theories”, explains the researcher. She also highlights that the results also end up affecting public policies.

Furthermore, as the questions are mostly prepared by men, the questions will be thought of from this point of view. Here, Luiza highlights point of view theory, within feminist economics, which says: “it is not that it is impossible to have a certain objectivity, but that objectivity is achieved when you have several points of view being taken into consideration. In order to avoid different biases, you need to have different points of view : you need to analyze your object of study from different points of view”.

Trends in search

Luiza comments that, within feminist economics, a very popular topic is the care economy. We know that there is an entire branch of domestic activity that is carried out predominantly by women and is unpaid - tasks such as cleaning the house, cooking, caring for children and the elderly. As it is unpaid, it ends up not being included in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) account, which is the main measure used for well-being. 

Therefore, “feminist economists attack the issue of GDP not taking into account this enormous productive effort that takes place in the economy, which makes all other productive activities considered possible”, says Luiza Nassif.

A difficulty encountered in Brazilian economic research is the lack of detailed information about the use of time. According to the researcher, the lack of data is an impediment to studies in Brazil: “this is another line, having better data. Open data by gender, open data by race. We need to open the data, we need to know what is happening, because this has implications for public policies”.

Inequalities in the pandemic

Luiza Nassif developed some work on the impact of the pandemic on social inequality in both the United States and Brazil. In a study prepared in partnership with researchers from USP, Luiza analyzed multidimensional inequality and COVID-19 in Brazil and found that the issue of race is one of the main differentiators: “black people are much more vulnerable in this pandemic than white people”, comments.

In another study, which analyzed public policies adopted for the disease from a gender perspective, the results showed that few had gender impacts, except emergency aid, responsible for reducing - a little - the inequalities that were exacerbated.

“When we look at families headed by black women, they are much more affected economically by the coronavirus. They lose much more income and recover less. We already have a little economic recovery, but this comes more quickly for white people and men”, explains Luiza. 

There is also other research being developed on the impact of emergency aid on poverty. And expectations regarding results are not the best: “women are already more represented among the poor and the extremely poor. We hope not only that the impact will be much greater for women, but even greater for black women, and the difference between this extreme poverty between men and women will become even more distant”, concludes Luiza.