Intersectional inequalities in science

Abstract

The US scientific workforce is primarily composed of White men. Studies have demonstrated the systemic barriers preventing women and other minoritized populations from gaining entry to science; few, however, have taken an intersectional perspective and examined the consequences of these inequalities on scientific knowledge. We provide a large-scale bibliometric analysis of the relationship between intersectional identities, topics, and scientific impact. We find homophily between identities and topic, suggesting a relationship between diversity in the scientific workforce and expansion of the knowledge base. However, topic selection comes at a cost to minoritized individuals for whom we observe both between- and within-topic citation disadvantages. To enhance the robustness of science, research organizations should provide adequate resources to historically underfunded research areas while simultaneously providing access for minoritized individuals into high-prestige networks and topics.

Academic Support Network Reflects Doctoral Experience and Productivity

“…These outcomes are also supported by previous work on intersectional inequalities, where it is shown that there is homophily between identities and subject of research. 18 Social determinants of the academic productivity Research on academic performance and success focuses on metrics that are easy to quantify, accessible for research, and standardized across disciplines. 15 Efforts on quantifying academic performance at individual and group levels use productivity measures such as number of publications and impact indicators like citation counts.…”

“…Biology & Health Sciences: nursing (991), public health (670), molecular biology (583), neurosciences (517), mental health (448), cellular biology (388), genetics (370), biomedical engineering (298), microbiology ( alternative medicine (47), pharmaceutical sciences (45), parasitology (35), occupational health (34), food science (33), plant pathology (32), endocrinology (32), sexuality (31), audiology (30), systematic (26), veterinary services (26), obstetrics (26), ophthalmology (24), molecular chemistry (22), dentistry (22), medical personnel (22), molecular physics (21), organismal biology (20), systematic biology (16), neurology (15), histology (12), animal diseases (11), health care (10), biomedical research (10), pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing (8), anatomy & physiology (5), rehabilitation (5), general medical and surgical hospitals (4), health (3), osteopathic medicine (2), radiology (2), optometry (25), paleontology (25), limnology (23), land use planning (21), paleoclimate science (19), planetology (19), sedimentary geology (18), conservation biology (18), geotechnology (17), paleoecology (15), plate tectonics ( 14), chemical oceanography (14), botany (12), marine geology (12), water resources management (12), petroleum geology (10), mining engineering (10), geological (9), geophysical (8), wood sciences (8), macroecology (7), petrology (7), environmental geology (…”

Harassment as a consequence and cause of inequality in academia: A narrative review

“… 9 , 10 , 11 , 56 , 57 In addition, intersectional inequality harms science itself because some topics that are traditionally studied more by scholars from marginalized groups receive lower citation rates and become systematically less studied. 58 These authors showed that if “the author distribution over the last 40 y would have matched the 2010 US Census, there would have been 29% more articles in public health, 26% more on gender-based violence, 25% more in gynecology and in gerontology, 20% more on immigrants and minorities, and 18% more on mental health” (60, p. 6).…”

“Broad” Impact: Perceptions of Sex/Gender-Related Psychology Journals

“…In Study 2, we selected the same 4 sex/gender-related journals as Study 1, recorded their 5-year impact factor using Journal Citation Reports ( Table 1 ), and determined all psychology journals in the Journal Citation Reports with similar 5-year impact factors (within ± 0.023). Given that Study 1 conflated race and class (i.e., Journal of Psychology in Africa ), which muddles the effects as race and class are also marginalized topics of study (e.g., Kozlowski et al, 2022 ), in Study 2 we did not select journals that conflated race and class when more than one journal met our 5-year impact factor criteria. For instance, we chose the match for Women and Therapy (5-year impact factor = 0.191) to be Psychologia (5-year impact factor = 0.168) as opposed to the Journal of Psychology in Africa (5-year impact factor = 0.18).…”

“…Research by women authors is judged as lower in quality ( Knobloch-Westerwick et al, 2013 ) and is less likely to be: cited ( Larivière et al, 2013 ), receive conference air time ( Johnson et al, 2017 ), and featured in on-campus presentations ( Nittrouer et al, 2018 ). Further, individuals from minoritized groups (e.g., white, Black, and Latinx women) are more likely to be overrepresented in research topics that have disproportionately lower citation counts ( Kozlowski et al, 2022 ).…”