Gender homophily, collaboration, and output

Abstract

We consider the implications of gender homophily in Economics, which has persisted despite the significant increase in women in the field. As women remain underrepresented, gender homophily may serve as a constraint in collaboration. It could also lead to less gender diverse co-author teams than may be optimal in terms of generating high quality research papers. We show that gender homophily neither constrains collaboration nor prevents higher quality output.