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About this Blog

This blog is exactly what the title suggests:

It contains the leftovers and tidbits that are of interest to me but that don't fit other outlets of which I have a few.

As a behavioral economist, I publish academic papers which are serious research (or so I'm told), but do not attract a wide audience (or so I assume).  I look forward to writing more freely here about what drives people to behave in ways that often contradict mainstream economic theory.  As someone with other diverse interests, ranging from Taekwon-Do to food to fashion, I will also be leaving posts on a variety of random topics.

Finally, to clarify the seeming typo in the title of the blog: Evan is my son's name, and he is three at the time of this post.  Many posts here will have a theme of how to navigate and balance family, parenthood, career, and hobbies. There is no such thing as 'having it all', but there is such a thing as compromising to achieve balance.

Popular posts from this blog

Documenting the Gender Gap in the Use of Titles in Academia

    The “Dr. Jill” (Biden) controversy swept social media like wildfire in early 2021, bringing yet another double standard for men and women to public attention . But to a female academic like me, “untitling” and “mistitling” has always been par for the course. For years, I would grit my teeth as I open an email from a new contact starting with “Hey Olga” or worse yet “Dear Mrs. Shurchkov.” If the email came from a student or advisee, I would try to awkwardly explain why addressing someone with a PhD this way is inappropriate. But it would not be as easy if the addresser were a professional colleague, especially if senior. My male colleagues never seemed to have to deal with this or to even care. (See Endnote 1 for a caveat about titles in Taekwon-Do.)     Before I go any further, let me first explain “untitling.” Linguistically, the prefix “un” implies the act of taking away, which in this case refers to a removal of an earned title that diminishes perceived autho...
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The dreaded post

I stand at my kitchen counter and scarf down an egg bite I just microwaved.   This has been lunch since the start of the pandemic. One minute to microwave, one minute to eat, back to work. And, much of my work life has been like this.   If Evan is home, I stand at the kitchen counter, typing at my computer.   If Evan is at school, I sit in my makeshift office which is also my TKD room, zoom-ready at all times. When I’m in there, I almost never get up.   Home "office": View of wall and Taekwon-Do trophies. According to a survey I conducted with Tatyana Deryugina and Jenna Stearns last summer, since the start of the pandemic researchers lost about 50 min of research time per typical workday, and much of the time lost can be attributed to childcare disruptions due to the lockdowns, school closures, and lacking care infrastructure to pick up the slack.   And while fathers worked about 75 minutes less per workday due to Covid-19 disruptions, mothers worked almost tw...
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Kicking the leadership gap

Standing in the fourth row of black belts at the 116 th ITF Taekwon-do International Instructor Course in New York , I witnessed a real-life representation of the gender leadership gap.  Women were well-represented in the ranks of 1 st Degrees, showed up to a lesser extent among 2 nd and 3 rd Dans, could be seen here and there in my line of 4 th Dans, but only one or two stood in the front three lines. I literally got goose bumps when a woman was promoted to Master (7 th Degree), joining just one other female Master in the room. It made me want to ask them: How? What’s the secret?  The decrease in female representation with seniority is not unique to martial arts, of course.  One of the best visualizations of the leadership gap in business appears here .  Similar trends had shown up in academia and in politics . The reasons for these gaps remind me of the reasons why there aren’t more female Taekwon-do Masters. History Taekwon-do (ITF) was founded ...
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