In the academic world, where merit should count above all else, sometimes a few words are enough to change a destiny. Those written in a reference letter—outstanding, brilliant, hardworking, reliable—can influence a competition or a call much more than one might think. And if those words systematically vary according to the gender of the candidate, meritocracy risks becoming an illusion.

The study Women in economics: The role of gendered references at entry in the profession by Alessandra Casarico (Bocconi University), Audinga Baltrunaitė, and Lucia Rizzica (Bank of Italy), published in the European Economic Review, attempted to measure this asymmetry. The researchers collected 25,000 reference letters written over a ten-year period for more than 8,000 candidates for academic or research positions in economics and finance, and analyzed them using Natural Language Processing techniques, artificial intelligence applied to language.

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