Women accounted for a small share of total guests featured during weekday evening economic coverage on the three major cable news networks, despite a renewed focus on economic discussions that significantly affect American women.
A Media Matters analysis conducted over the past year revealed that women comprised just 28.4 percent of total guests featured in weekday evening segments dedicated to economic news and policy debates on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
Women make up slightly more than half of the total United States population and represent a significant majority of the voting public, but their voices remain vastly underrepresented in cable news segments on the economy.
Previous Media Matters studies have shown that weekday evening cable news coverage of the economy in particular fails to feature economists and experts. This failure is more shocking when measured in terms of gender -- women made up less than 10 percent of economist appearances in the past year.
Given that women make up more than 50 percent of the country, all economic issues are women's issues, and the lack of adequate female representation in these segments is a significant failure. But it is particularly glaring given the recent emphasis from policy makers and advocates across the political spectrum to highlight economic issues that disproportionately affect American women.
For example, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), roughly 56 percent of minimum wage workers are women, and recently dozens of women in the economics profession signed a public letter circulated by EPI imploring lawmakers to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Raising the minimum wage to this level and tying it to inflation now has the support of congressional Democrats and the White House, but weekday cable guest lists have mostly not included female economists whose research and advocacy support the effort.
The lack of adequate female guest representation in economic discussions is not a result of a lack of available and qualified candidates. Heidi Hartmann, the president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), is a prominent advocate for public policies focused on issues of particular importance to women. Economists Heidi Shierholz and Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute have written extensively on the impact of low wages on women and the importance of health care reform. Jeanneatte Wicks-Lim of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) also specializes on studying policy effects on low-wage workers. Michigan State University economist Lisa Cook has been a recurring guest on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry in the past, but did not appear during MSNBC's evening weekday lineup in the past year. Christina Romer of the University of California, Berkeley is the former chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers and co-authored President Obama's economic recovery plan in 2009 with economist Jared Bernstein, himself a regular guest on MSNBC.
The economics profession produces more than enough women with the talent necessary to advocate policies or comment on research in the cable news sphere. It is time for guest lists to start reflecting the diversity of opinion and expertise held by women in the field.