Addressing gender equality in economics as a discipline in a UK business school

Gender inequality is a persistent challenge and can be particularly difficult to overcome in male-dominated professions that can then serve to perpetuate barriers to entry. This requires that we tackle vertical inequalities and their associated pay inequalities. We also need to tackle broader occupational segregation that creates inequalities in team composition that can impact the culture of a field and perpetuate the gendered view of it. Certain fields are known to attract more men, or women, creating occupational segregation. This can lead to preferential conditions whereby certain occupations become better paid than others, with male-dominated professions securing higher salaries, on average, than their female-dominated equivalents. But in professions that are also known to be influential in policy-making, the impacts are potentially more wide-ranging and significant, reflecting imbalances of power and influencing society.