Women are credited less in science than men

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 women1. The gap might be a result of productivity differences2–5, or it might be owing to women’s contributions not being acknowledged6,7. 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.

Gender-diverse teams produce more novel and higher-impact scientific ideas

“…This underrepresentation is all the more striking given the findings that gender-diverse teams produce more novel and high-impact research and suggests that gender-diverse teams may have substantial untapped potential for medical research. Nevertheless, the underrepresentation of gender-diverse teams may reflect research showing that women receive less credit for their successes than do men teammates ( 14 , 55 ), which in turn inhibits the formation of gender-diverse teams and women’s success in receiving grants ( 56 ), prizes ( 3 ), and promotions ( 22 ).…”

Gender imbalances in citation rates are mediated by field specific author gender distributions

“…This concept describes the tendency of individuals to associate, bond or (implicitly or explicitly) favor other individuals that are similar with regard to age, race, and social status, but also gender. Within this framework, it would be expected that scientific fields dominated (either with regard to numbers or degree of influence on a given field) by men or women alike, show a bias towards citing work (or “appreciation”, Ross et al 2022) of their own “gender in-group”. In the broader context of the current literature on disadvantages female scholars are faced with (Llorens et al 2021), this theory provides not only an explanation for the currently reported patterns of citation bias, but also suggests that implementation of effective measures aimed at increasing the percentage of underrepresented individuals or connecting them to influential scholars (Verhoeven et al 2020), may indeed be suited to leveling the playing field.…”

“…Gender biases are well documented in academia and typically favor male researchers (Huang et al 2020; Ross et al 2022). For example, female compared to male researchers frequently fare worse regarding work recognition and compensation, grant funding outcomes, teaching evaluations, hiring, or tenure promotion.…”

“…However, previous studies on citation bias in science have exclusively investigated fields with author distributions strongly skewed towards male researchers. In these fields, sociological theory (McPherson et al 2001) predicts that a combination of implicit or explicit favoritisms towards similar group members (e.g., individuals of the same biological sex, particularly by individuals in influential positions) and systemic factors (Dworkin et al 2020;Llorens et al 2021;Ross et al 2022), contribute to overcitation of male scientists. Therefore, the present study investigated citation bias for the first time in a field which has traditionally been more accessible to female scientists, i.e., speech-and language pathology (SLP).…”

Designing the Microbes and Social Equity Symposium: A Novel Interdisciplinary Virtual Research Conference Based on Achieving Group-Directed Outputs

“…Fostering student engagement, especially in challenging virtual environments, is also well-documented to improve learning outcomes and achievement in a typical academic setting [7,8]. We also made specific efforts to reach out to speakers from historically excluded social groups and highlight their work as discipline experts [9], not just advocates for outreach, which is a critical aspect of inclusion practices [10].…”