One probably would have forecast that Eva L. Mueller who was awarded her economics Ph.D. (Radcliffe College) in 1951 with the dissertation “Business Savings and the Business Cycle” would have gone on to become a macroeconomist. Arthur Smithies was the chairman of the Harvard economics department at the time she received her Ph.D. and when asked for his help in finding a job, Eva Mueller remembered him saying “…he couldn’t help me, since economics wasn’t a woman’s field”. She did find a job at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research where she transformed herself into a population and development expert.
I have copy-and-pasted a variety of biographical memoirs and obituaries for this post. One cannot help but be touched by the deep affection and respect of her Michigan colleagues that one can read in and between the lines. Macro’s loss was development economics’ gain.
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Professor Eva Mueller, 1920-2006
Professor Eva Mueller died on November 19, 2006 at the age of 86.
Dr. Mueller, a U-M Professor Emerita of Economics and Research Scientist at PSC at the time of her death, had a long and fruitful career at Michigan. But she faced many challenges on her path to success.
Fifty-five years ago, when Mueller received a PhD in economics from Harvard University, she asked the chairman of the department for help finding a job. “He said he couldn’t help me, since economics wasn’t a woman’s field,” she recalled. Undeterred, Mueller found a research job at the Institute for Social Research (ISR), where she helped to pioneer the use of surveys to analyze consumer behavior. After six years, she received a tenure-track appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics and in 1964 was named a full professor.
“The struggle isn’t over yet,” she said, accepting the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award Jan. 6, 2001 from the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.
Mueller was nominated for the award, given annually to an individual who has furthered the status of women in economics, by several former students, along with David Lam, professor of economics and director of ISR’s Population Studies Center, and Sherrie Kossoudji, associate professor of social work and adjunct associate professor of economics.
“Eva was really unusual as a woman breaking into the male-dominated field of economics,” noted Lam. “She was a real role model for many of us,” said Kossoudji. “She was also consistent in her support for young female students. And she made us tough. ‘You must do better,’ she told us. ‘You must work harder.’ That was always her approach.”
Born February 26, 1920, Mueller said she was influenced by the Great Depression in making her career choice. “It impressed me that what the world needed was to rescue its economies,” she said. Also, her mother, who had a PhD in chemistry, emphasized education for her children. “She had her mind set that all her children must get PhDs.”
During WWII, she said, when the Harvard Economics Department “was more or less closed down… because all of the faculty was in Washington working on the war effort,” she took a job at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
After the war, Mueller studied under Alvin Hansen, “at the time the number one Keynesian in the U.S.” Upon completing her PhD, she needed a job.
“I wrote some letters to people whose stuff I had read and thought they would be interesting to work for. One was George Katona. He happened to know George Garvey, for whom I had worked at the Federal Reserve, so he wrote to him and asked if I would be a plausible candidate. That’s how I came to Michigan to the Institute for Social Research.
I wanted to go to the economics department, but they would not accept me. Then I was sort of on the waiting list. John Lansing and, I think, even Jim Morgan, were on the waiting list ahead of me. They eventually got to me.”
In 1951 Mueller joined the staff of the Survey Research Center; in 1957 she joined the Department of Economics, where she became a full professor in 1964. Six years later, she became a research scientist at the Population Studies Center. Mueller had been a Professor Emerita since 1988.
During her long and active career at Michigan, Eva Mueller made important contributions in several areas of economic research. For the first two decades, her research emphasized analysis of consumer behavior in the U.S. She later moved on to work related to economic development and economic demography. Her published papers cover a wide range of topics and countries, including the impact of unemployment on consumer confidence in the U.S., the economics of fertility decline in Taiwan, and the time allocation of women and children in Botswana.
In addition to her contributions as a researcher, she played an important role in building the economic demography training program run jointly by the Population Studies Center and the Department of Economics. She served as an advisor to many PhD students in economic demography who have gone on to positions in universities, government, and international agencies.
The Eva Mueller New Directions in Demography and Economics Fund has been established to support research and training in demography and economics, especially projects focusing on low income countries and projects dealing with the socioeconomic position of women and investments in children’s health and human capital.
Source: Announcement of the death of Eva L. Mueller by the University of Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
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Select Career Publications
Dr. Mueller studied the interaction of economic and demographic change. One particular focus of her research was the relation between income change and fertility change. Within this context she was interested in the methodology of collecting useful employment statistics, including the methodology of time-use studies.
Journal Articles
Mueller, Eva. 1984. “The Value and Allocation of Time in Rural Botswana.” Journal of Development Economics, 15(1-3): 329-60. Abstract.
Watanabe, B., and Eva Mueller. “A Poverty Profile for Rural Botswana.” World Development, 12, no. 2 (1984): 115-27. Abstract.
Kossoudji, S., and Eva Mueller. “The Economic and Demographic Status of Female-Headed Households in Rural Botswana.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 31, no. 4 (July 1983): 831-59.
Mueller, Eva. “The Impact of Demographic Factors on Economic Development in Taiwan.” Population and Development Review, 3, no. 1&2 (1977): 1-22. Abstract.
Mueller, Eva, and R. Cohn. “The Relation of Income to Fertility Decisions in Taiwan.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 25, no. 2 (January 1977): 325-47.
MacDonald, M., and Eva Mueller. “The Measurement of Income in Fertility Surveys in Developing Countries.” Studies in Family Planning, 6, no. 1 (January 1975): 22-28. Abstract.
Mueller, Eva. “Economic Motives for Family Limitation.” Population Studies, 27, no. 3 (November 1972): 383-403. Abstract.
Chapters
Mueller, Eva. 1976. “The Economic Value of Children in Peasant Agriculture.” In Population and Development: The Search for Selective Interventions edited by Ronald Gene Ridker. Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press.
PSC Reports
Mueller, Eva. “Time Use Studies: Their Potential Contribution to the Policy Dialogue in Developing Countries.” PSC Research Report No. 85-86. 9 1985.
Mueller, Eva, and Kathleen Short. “Income and Wealth as They Affect the Demand for Children in Developing Countries.” PSC Research Report No. 82-35. 9 1981.
Kassoudji, Sherrie, and Eva Mueller. “The Economic and Demographic Status of Female Headed Households in Rural Botswana.” PSC Research Report No. 81-10. 3 1981.
Source: University of Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
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Eva L. Mueller
Memoir
1988
Eva L. Mueller, Professor of Economics and Research Scientist in the Population Studies Center and Center for Research on Economic Development, will retire from active faculty status on December 31, 1988, after a most productive career as a teacher and researcher.
A native of Germany, Professor Mueller became a naturalized citizen in 1944. She received her B.A. degree from Smith College in 1942, her M.A. degree from New York University in 1945, and her Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1951.
From 1951-68, Professor Mueller was on the staff of the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research. She joined the Department of Economics in 1957 as an assistant professor; she was promoted to associate professor in 1960 and to professor in 1964. Since 1968, she has also been affiliated with the Center for Research in Economic Development and the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, and in 1970, she accepted an additional appointment in the Population Studies Center. From 1974-78, Professor Mueller served as associate dean in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
For several years, Professor Mueller has directed the NIH-sponsored Economic Training Program in Economic Demography, which has attracted many of the brightest students in the Ph.D. program in economics. Several of the department’s most successful female students have been recruited into the program. They were attracted by the setting Professor Mueller created, which was encouraging and supportive, and in which Professor Mueller herself has acted as an extraordinary role model.
Professor Mueller has conducted exciting and important research in the area of fertility and female labor supply in developing countries. Some of her work has been conducted under the auspices of the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development, taking her to India, Thailand, Brazil, and Botswana.
The Regents now salute this distinguished educator and researcher for her dedicated service by naming Eva L. Mueller Professor Emeritus of Economics.
Source: Mueller named Emerita Professor at University of Michigan. Faculty History Project.
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Obituary
Eva L. Mueller
1920 – 2006
Eva Mueller, Professor Emerita of Economics, died November 19, 2006, in Ann Arbor, at the age of eighty-six.
Professor Mueller received her B.A. in 1942 from Smith College with a major in economics. In 1951 she received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and joined the staff of the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center. In 1957 she joined the Department of Economics. She became associated with the Center for Research in Economic Development and the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies in 1968, and joined the Population Studies Center in 1970. Her many roles at the University of Michigan included service as Associate Dean in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Mueller received a number of distinctions during her career. She was a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. She served on the Board of Directors of the Population Association of America and was elected Vice-President of the Association. In 2001 she received the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economics Association. This award is given by the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession “to an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession, through example, achievements, increasing our understanding of how women can advance in the economics profession, or mentoring of others.”
Mueller made important contributions in several areas of economic research. For the first two decades, her research emphasized analysis of consumer behavior in the United States. She later moved into research related to economic development and economic demography. Her published papers cover a wide range of topics and countries, including the impact of unemployment on consumer confidence in the U.S., the economics of fertility decline in Taiwan, and the time allocation of women and children in Botswana. In addition to her contributions as a researcher, she played an important role in building the economic demography training program run jointly by the Population Studies Center and the Department of Economics. She served as an advisor to many Ph.D. students in economic demography who have gone on to positions in universities, government, and international agencies.
—David Lam, Department of Economics
Source: Obituary for Eva L. Mueller, University of Michigan. Faculty History Project.
Image sources: Early career portrait of Eva L. Mueller from University of Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research. Later portrait from University of Michigan, Faculty History Project.