Tracking Diversity Progress in Financial Economics: The State of Gender Equality in 2023

Apr. 03, 2024

As of December 2023, on average, 22% of researchers in finance departments at leading universities were women. Sweden ranks fifth on the global ranking.

Swedish House of Finance has updated its "Women in Finance Data", a tool that monitors the participation of female researchers working at finance departments at leading research institutes around the world. The database is part of SHoF’s initiative to enhance transparency and encourage action towards gender equality in finance.

As of December 2023, on average, 22% of researchers in finance departments at leading universities were women. In Sweden, female researchers represent 26% of the total, placing the country fifth worldwide.

The database covers 5,909 researchers across 133 institutions in 20 countries. The statistics can be visualized on a country, institutional, and seniority level, ranging from research associate to full professor.

Women in Finance Data

Access the database

How can the database help decision-making at academic institutions?

To know how many women, relative to men, there are across ranks in our profession might influence the policy that institutions use to determine the number of women they aim to invite for seminars, conferences, discussions, and keynote speeches. In addition, it is also useful to know how many peers there are in departments during recruitment processes.

How was the process of aggregating the data?

SHoF has been able to draw on previous work by colleagues at Goethe University in Frankfurt. They have developed a web-scraping tool that identifies individuals listed on employers’ websites and records the names and roles of these individuals. Gender was then identified through first names and a gender identification software analyzing pictures. Lastly, data was manually checked, and the research institutions were contacted to assure the quality of the data.

Feedback and questions

In case you have questions, requests, or comments, feel free to contact:

Marieke Bos
marieke.bos@hhs.se

Göran Robertsson
goran.robertsson@hhs.se

Göran Robertsson