As we celebrate Claudia Goldin’s well-deserved Nobel Prize win in Economic Sciences, for her pioneering research on the gender dynamics of labour markets, we are left pondering over this question. Why did it take over half a century for the Nobel committee to recognise economic research addressing gender inequalities in the economy?
A simplistic response is to blame economics being a male-dominated discipline, which in turn sidelines questions of gender inequality and fails to give them due importance. While the under-representation of women in economics— and even here it is only the work of only a few women that is acknowledged — is cause for concern, one has to refrain from making a superficial assumption that women economists think differently than men or have different interests.
Drop the androcentric biases
Feminist economists have argued for the need to revisit economic theory to overcome the limitations posed by its masculine nature. The critique of feminist economists is not to strip economics away from its objectivity but to push for an economic theory free of its androcentric biases. Here, androcentric bias refers to the economic theories that fail to question the hierarchy of gender relations, take it as a given, and form assumptions that facilitate the existing hierarchies. This is illustrated by the duality of an economic man in the assumptions of economic theory, one who is self-interested in the marketplace and an altruist in the household. It is as if his self-interest is seemingly set aside at the doorstep, allowing an ‘altruistic’ man to know what is best for everyone in the family.
In both instances, the economic man is a rational being, who is both all-knowing and detached from his emotional self. The prototypical individual is attached to a world of one’s own without the ability to be empathetic to another. The power wielded by a patriarch to solely make decisions for other individuals is subsumed under an assumption of altruism, setting the foundation for most economic theories concerning the household.
Much like an economic man, economics as a discipline has remained detached from the gendered experiences of individuals. A survey of economic models of the labour market tells us that these theories are not only ignorant of gendered experiences but also go on to invisibilise them. These models fail to account for the contributions of women as unpaid workers, who reproduce labour for the firms. If we were to examine upper-class households in India that employ domestic workers, we would find that these workers, trapped in ‘hire and fire’ verbal agreements, bear the brunt of extending their care work to multiple households, including their own. In such cases, these households effectively transform into a distinct labour market, that is complicated by the role of caste networks and migration. Economic theories perceive non-markets spaces such as the household similar to firms or markets. As such it fails to accommodate individuals occupying multiple social identities. For example, the well-being of domestic workers remains understudied in economics.
Julie Nelson and other feminist economists have documented how social meanings associated with gender influence the building blocks of economic theory. While it is reasonable to associate masculine bias with the prominence of male economists, feminist economists argue that the direction of causality runs opposite. That is, there is something well within the nature of economics as a discipline that excludes individuals with lived experiences that fail to fit into its theories. It is partly the failure of economics to correct for its theoretical limitations that exclude non-male economists.
Effect of biases
Biases inherent in economic theory can affect even the most sophisticated statistical methods. Empirical results may either reflect unrealistic assumptions of economic theory or remain unexplained by them. Even when most credible methodologies are employed, it is economic theory that provides the framework for interpreting empirical findings. The primacy of economic rationality, in theory, overlooks social mechanisms that may drive certain empirical findings.
Consider the example of women’s employment and its relation to spousal violence. Economic theories regarding households suggest a negative correlation, as a wife’s employment, especially when she earns more, means more income for the household. It is assumed to put the husband in a better position than without the wife’s income, thus reducing the occurrence of spousal violence. However, evidence from recent studies in India directly contradicts this theory. These studies show that employed women, particularly those earning more than their husbands, are at a higher risk of experiencing spousal violence. In sociology literature, this phenomenon is known as the presence of “male backlash”, wherein the challenge posed to traditional gender roles by women’s employment is sometimes reasserted by husbands through the use of violence.
Rethink the discipline
The masculinity of economics as a discipline is further strengthened by the importance given to causal methods of inference over other methods of empirical analysis. Though the former can offer better precision in identifying specific effects, relying solely on empirical data without considering the social context can lead to a misinterpretation of results. In particular, unique social dynamics tied to caste and gender norms often go unnoticed due to the lack of data to empirically investigate them. To overcome these limitations, economists can adopt a mixed methods approach, by finding a balance between different ways of doing research and giving due attention to findings of other disciplines.
What is ahead for economists and economics is to contextualise economic theory to make it truly reflective of reality. The tools of objectivity in economics only go so far as they can account for the existing lived realities of individuals in society. Taking Professor Goldin’s win as a move in the right direction, economics needs to pave the path for accommodation, be it among economists, their method, and, most importantly, in economic theories.
Vijayshree Jayaraman is a postgraduate student of economics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru
