Gender in the Economy: Women in the Digital World

The NBER’s Working Group on Gender in the Economy, which is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, promotes research on gender issues in the economies of developing and developed nations. This group will convene a research meeting on “Women in the Digital World” to explore the gender-specific effects of the digitization of economic and social activities. The digital economy, which encompasses developments from mobile money to electronic tracking of tax liability to online labor market platforms and the technology for work from home, has the potential to be transformative for the global population and to elevate the positions of women. The effects of access to cell phones, the internet, online marketplaces, and mobile money may differ by gender in ways that are mediated by and have the potential to shape women’s positions in their communities. 

The conference program will be arranged by NBER Research Associates Jessica Goldberg (University of Maryland), Sydnee Caldwell (UC-Berkeley) and Tavneet Suri (MIT Sloan). The meeting will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Friday, February 28th; There will be a conference dinner on the evening of Thursday, February 27th. 

The program will include both 50-minute paper presentations, with time for questions, as well as “egg-timer sessions” lasting 10 minutes without questions. Submissions need not be complete papers, but complete papers will be given priority for longer presentations. Submissions may be designated “egg-timer only” by noting this in the comments field on the submission page. All submissions that are not selected for longer presentations will be considered for “egg-timers.” 

Submissions of both empirical and theoretical research, of papers by scholars who are and are not NBER affiliates, and by researchers who are early in their careers or from historically under-represented groups in economics are welcome. Please do not submit papers that will be published by February 2025. To be considered for presentation, please upload submissions by 11:59pm ET on Monday, December 9, 2024. Authors chosen to present papers will be notified by early January 2025. 

The NBER will cover the cost for up to two presenters per paper to attend the meeting; other co-authors are welcome to attend at their own expense. Please share this call for papers with others who may be interested in submitting a paper. Questions about this conference may be addressed to confer@nber.org.