The NYC Marathon Is A Mirror Of U.S. Economic Success And Challenges

A Brief Look Back At The History Of Female Marathon Runners 

Marathons were closed to women well into the 1960s. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first female to officially run the Boston Marathon. She registered as K.V. Switzer to avoid giving away her gender and had to battle off a race official when he tried to push her out of the race after noticing her. In the first NYC Marathon in 1970, only one female participant registered but had to drop out due to illness. In 1980, the share of female participants rose to 13%, and over the next few decades, the numbers rose to 19% in 1990, 28% in 2000 and 36% in 2010.

A Similar Journey For Women In The U.S. Economy

Today it seems self-evident that women should make up a large share of the high-skilled workforce, but as late as the 1960s, this was still far from the case. Northwestern University, for instance, only agreed to accept women into its medical school in the 1920s after installing a quota of four women per class of over 100 students — a practice that was in place until 1963.

In other words, it was not only in the marathon that women were figuratively and literally being pushed off the field. The aforementioned paper points out that “in 1960, 94% of doctors and lawyers were white men. By 2010, the fraction was just 62%.” Other high-skilled professions have gone through a similar transition.

Why Does This Matter?

The brilliant insight from this study is not that the U.S. economy has grown because more women are participating in the labor force, but rather that some of the growth has come from marginalized groups doing higher-skilled jobs that are a better fit for their talents. How is that possible? If these women had not stepped into those roles, wouldn’t a man just do the work? Perhaps, but not as well as the best female performers.

For almost every job, the most productive workers are not just a few percentage points more productive than average performers but rather multiple times more productive. This might sometimes be difficult to imagine since the top performers don’t differ significantly in terms of their activities from average performers, but the point is that the results are that much more valuable.

Analyzing data on the lifetime prize money earnings of top female marathon runners from the mid-1980s and onward, it becomes clear that a runner who placed in the top 10% on average took home 29 times more than a runner in the bottom 50%.

A phenomenal computer engineer is unlikely to write 10 times more code than their peers. However, the quality of the code they write can result in billions of people choosing to use Google rather than alternative search engines.

Looking Forward

Improving the ways in which marginalized groups are matched with opportunities has resulted in an impressive 20%-40% of incremental economic growth. This result should be celebrated as both a societal and moral victory. However, it also presents a challenge for how the U.S. economy and American companies can keep up with historical growth rates. If American companies no longer have access to what in hindsight might seem like an obvious way of improving their productivity, then what should they do moving forward? My suggestion to business leaders is to focus on two main points:

• Engage marginalized groups earlier to uncover more gems. Old norms can take a long time to change. For instance, about 65% of STEM graduates are still male. Business leaders can overcome such old patterns by engaging marginalized groups at a younger age before they’ve been tainted by societal views on what males and females “should” be good at. The Swedish co-founders of Spotify, for instance, regularly sponsor coding workshops and hackathons for Swedish fifth graders.
• Challenge age-old structural industrial norms that are talent drains. In several industries’ career paths, recruiting practices and even roles and responsibilities are designed for a male workforce. My wife, for instance, spent four years in an undergrad education, another four years in medical school, three years in residency and three years in fellowship. By the time she was ready to start practicing as a pediatrics, gastroenterology MD, she was in her early 30s and wanted to have children. After having children, she decided to work part-time to enjoy her time with our children. This example is a stark contrast with my brother, who did his medical studies in Sweden. Sweden’s medical school is combined with the undergraduate curriculum, making the entire university program 5 1/2 years long. Their equivalence to residency training is 18 months long.

Most importantly, I encourage company leaders, politicians and members of marginalized groups to not give up the dreams of the past. Progress is ultimately made when brave individuals are willing to push the boundaries of what is considered normal.

This article is originally published on Forbes.

Atta Tarki is the founder and CEO of ECA and the author of Evidence-Based Recruiting (McGraw Hill, February 2020).