Dr Federica Alberti of the University’s Faculty of Business and Law has received funding from the Royal Economic Society to help inspire young women’s careers in economics.
The ‘Women in Economics’ event aims to inform girls in Year 10 about the nature of economic decisions and the variety of career opportunities related to economics, and to inspire them by bringing role models to the event to talk about economics. The Royal Economic Society will provide funding and support through their Discover Economics School Outreach Programme.
It will include talks by successful female economists from a variety of backgrounds, including public economics, development economics, behavioural economics, and financial economics.
Dr Alberti said: “We want to encourage female students to choose subjects that will enable them to study economics at the University. We want to show to them what economics is about, challenging the stereotype that it’s only about ‘business and investments’ that involves mostly men.”
The event is part of an ongoing project to promote gender diversity in economics, which Dr Alberti believes matters because: “Gender diversity contributes to intellectual development and diverse organisations perform better. Furthermore, economists should represent the society they live in and economics provides an opportunity to access highly paid jobs.”
The event will take place at the University in July 2020.
Gender diversity contributes to intellectual development and diverse organisations perform better.