Data and Code for: Seeking the “Missing Women” of Economics with the Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge

Economics is among the most popular undergraduate
majors, especially in top colleges and universities. However, even at the best research
universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one, and
overall there are about 2.5 males to every female economics major. We discuss
why women major in economics less than men and describe a project to increase
the number of female economics majors. The Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE)
Challenge was a randomized controlled trial, with 20 treatment and 68 control
schools, that we ran for one year in AY 2015-16 to evaluate the impact of light-touch
interventions to recruit and retain female economics majors. Treatment schools
received funding, guidance, and access to networking with other treatment schools
to implement programs such as providing better information to incoming students
about the application of economics, exposing students to role models, providing
mentoring, and updating course content and pedagogy. Using 2001-2021 data from the NCES-Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System (IPEDS) on graduating undergraduates (BAs), we find that
UWE was effective in increasing the fraction of female BAs who majored in
economics relative to men in liberal arts colleges. Large universities did not
show an impact of the treatment, although those that implemented their own RCTs
showed moderate success in encouraging more women to major in economics. We discuss
what we believe worked in the UWE program and speculate on the reasons for
differential treatment impact. <br>

经济学是最热门的本科主修专业之一，尤其在顶尖高等院校中。然而，即便在顶尖研究型大学与文理学院，男性经济学专业学生与女性的比例仍达二比一；整体而言，经济学专业的男女学生比例约为2.5:1。
本文探讨了女性主修经济学的人数少于男性的原因，并介绍了一项旨在提升女性经济学专业学生规模的研究项目。本科女性经济学（Undergraduate Women in Economics, UWE）挑战计划是一项随机对照试验，我们于2015-2016学年开展了为期一年的实验，共纳入20所处理组院校与68所对照组院校，旨在评估轻触式干预措施在招募与留存女性经济学专业学生方面的效果。
处理组院校可获得项目资助、实施指导，以及与其他处理组院校开展网络交流的权限，用于开展各类帮扶项目，包括为新生提供更全面的经济学专业申请相关信息、为学生搭建接触行业榜样的渠道、提供导师辅导服务，以及更新课程内容与教学方法。
我们使用美国国家教育统计中心-高等教育集成数据系统（NCES-Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, IPEDS）2001至2021年的本科毕业生（学士学位获得者）数据开展分析，结果显示，相较于男性，UWE计划有效提升了文理学院中获得学士学位且主修经济学的女性占比。大型大学未体现出该干预措施的显著效果，但那些自行开展随机对照试验的院校，在鼓励更多女性主修经济学方面取得了中等程度的成功。
最后，本文探讨了UWE计划中被证实有效的举措，并针对干预效果存在差异的原因进行了推测。