Abstract There is a well-documented gap between the observed number of works produced by women and by men in science, with clear consequences for the retention and promotion of women 1 . The gap might be a result of productivity differences 2–5 , or it might be owing to women’s contributions not being acknowledged 6,7 . Here we find that at least part of this gap is the result of unacknowledged contributions: women in research teams are significantly less likely than men to be credited with authorship. The findings are consistent across three very different sources of data. Analysis of the first source—large-scale administrative data on research teams, team scientific output and attribution of credit—show that women are significantly less likely to be named on a given article or patent produced by their team relative to their male peers. The gender gap in attribution is present across most scientific fields and almost all career stages. The second source—an extensive survey of authors—similarly shows that women’s scientific contributions are systematically less likely to be recognized. The third source—qualitative responses—suggests that the reason that women are less likely to be credited is because their work is often not known, is not appreciated or is ignored. At least some of the observed gender gap in scientific output may be owing not to differences in scientific contribution, but rather to differences in attribution.
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This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2025
Structure, status, and span: gender differences in co-authorship networks across 16 region-subject pairs (2009–2013)
Global and team science approaches are on the rise, as is attention to the network underpinnings of gender disparities in scientific collaboration. Many network studies of men’s and women’s collaboration rely on bounded case studies of single disciplines and/or single countries and limited measures related to the collaborative process. We deploy network analysis on the scholarly database Scopus to gain insight into gender inequity across regions and subject areas and to better understand contextual underpinnings of stagnancy. Using a dataset of over 1.2 million authors and 144 million collaborative relationships, we capture international and unbounded co-authorship networks that include intra- and inter-disciplinary co-authorship ties across time (2009–2013). We describe how gender informs structural features and status differences in network relationships, focusing on men and women authors in 16 region-subject pairs. We pay particular attention to how connected authors are (first- and second-order degree centrality), attributes of authors’ collaborative relationships (including the “quality” and other characteristics of these ties), tendencies towards gender homophily (proportion of same-gender ties), and the nature of men’s and women’s interdisciplinary and international reach. Men have more advantageous first-order connections, yet second-order collaborative profiles look more similar. Men and women exhibit homophilous attachment to authors of the same gender, consistent over time. There is notable variation in the level of gender disparity within subjects across countries. We discuss this variation in the context of global trends in men’s and women’s scientific participation and cultural- and country-level influences on the organization and production of science.
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- PAR ID:
- 10526888
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Scientometrics
- Volume:
- 129
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0138-9130
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 147 to 179
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Collaboration networks Research collaboration Scientific collaboration Global science Team science Gender Bibliometrics Scientific publishing
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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