AEA Climate-in-Profession Survey

From time to time on this blog, yours truly has taken note of activities of the American Economic Association (AEA) in dealing with the professional climate in the economics field.

The AEA has published a survey of its members regarding climate in the field and climate at their workplaces.

As is often the case in such surveys, there is a potential problem of response bias, i.e., responders to the survey may be different, and have different experiences, compared to those who didn't answer. AEA acknowledges that problem. Still, the survey results are interesting and other professional academic organizations might consider undertaking similar surveys.

My sense is that the impetus for this effort came in part from an independent online group of anonymous economic posters, now known as XJMR (https://www.econjobrumors.com/) in which unfiltered comments were often posted. In any case, the most recent survey is at:

https://www.aeaweb.org/resources/member-docs/2023-climate-survey-report.

Below is a sample graphic from the survey:

Economists seem happier with the climate in their workplaces than with that of the overall profession.