US Treasury Secretary Yellen Hopes for Female Leader at HanEun... Dialogue with Female Employees

Household Labor, Fair Division with Spouse Important
Practical Advice on Work-Family Balance Draws Attention

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, who is visiting Korea, expressed her hope that more women can advance as leaders in central banks and encouraged female economists to take on challenges.

On the 19th, at a meeting held under the theme "Economics and Women" with female employees of the Bank of Korea in the large conference room on the 17th floor of the Samsung Main Building in Seoul, Secretary Yellen said, "I was once disappointed by the number of women in senior positions at the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), but that number is gradually increasing, and it is a pleasure to see young women with potential."

Secretary Yellen served as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the central bank, from 2014 to 2018.

Regarding why she did not give up her career despite the difficulties of balancing work and family, Yellen offered practical advice, saying, "It is very important to marry someone with whom you can fairly share household labor." She also reflected, "Academic professions have the advantage of being very flexible," adding, "A flexible work environment was a great help when I had to take my son to the hospital or participate in childcare when he was young."

She specifically mentioned the time when, while serving as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley campus, she received an offer from the White House asking if she was interested in working for the Fed. Yellen said, "At that time, my son was in sixth grade, and my husband was a full-time professor," adding, "My husband encouraged me to do it without worry, saying he would help."

Yellen hinted, "Although it was difficult because I had to move around the country frequently, I was able to successfully carry out my duties because I married a partner who actively supported my career advancement and shared the workload." Yellen's husband is George Akerlof, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics for the "lemon theory," which explains supply and demand in the used car market related to information asymmetry. When Yellen was president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, she co-authored a paper with her husband arguing that central banks should not ignore long-term unemployment.

Yellen said that one of the reasons she became interested in economics as an undergraduate was "unemployment." She explained, "My father was a family doctor, and many of his patients were blue-collar workers who lost their jobs due to economic downturns linked to business cycles," adding, "My father used to say that losing a job was not just a matter of losing a paycheck, and this experience growing up sparked my interest in studying unemployment."

She continued, "I have always been interested in what happens during business cycles, unemployment, and the labor market, and how monetary policy can address these issues," adding, "During policy-making periods, there were more times when unemployment was a bigger problem than inflation."

When asked if she had any advice for young central bank employees to broaden their perspectives in policy areas, she responded that it is necessary to take an interest even in fields that most people do not consider important.

Yellen said, "During my college years, discussions about the 'zero lower bound' were not considered important, but later it became an issue in Japan," adding, "It is important to understand what is happening in each country and what the key issues in policy are."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.