The reckoning in economics comes amid a larger national examination of bias and abuse toward women in the work force, across industries including entertainment, manufacturing and journalism. But the existence of bias in the field of economics is rattling a profession that, at its core, functions through objective interpretation and extrapolation of data, statistics and evidence.

Leaders of the American Economic Association announced on Friday night that they would begin to address bias concerns more seriously, by setting up an alternative to the online jobs site and drafting a code of conduct for economists. But many economists said that those steps were late, and that they left much work to be done to ensure fairness for women in the field, where the rate of entry for women lags that of math, engineering and other hard sciences.

“The time had come for the organization to make a more proactive statement,” said Peter L. Rousseau, the chairman of the economics department at Vanderbilt University and the association’s secretary-treasurer. He cast the decision as responding to evidence in a way that was natural for the profession. “Economists, I think, are just very objective in their view of the world,” he said.

In interviews during and after the conference, prominent women in economics described how their profession throws barriers in their professional paths, and they criticized the male-dominated leadership in the field for moving slowly to tear those barriers down.

“I don’t think it’s because we don’t know what is implicit bias. We know,” said Rhonda Sharpe, the president of the National Economics Association, which was founded to promote the professional development of minorities in the field. “It’s whether we stand up and call it out, and usually we don’t.”