FLICKR, JOEL PENNERGender inequality is rampant in the sciences, but most of the evidence that could illuminate this problem is outdated or anecdotal. Now, researchers from Indiana University, the University of Montreal, and the University of Quebec have looked at citations across disciplines by gender and demonstrated that female scientists publish less and receive fewer citations than their male counterparts around the world. The analysis was published as a comment in Nature this week (December 11).
The team classified authorship by gender for over 27 million authors of nearly 5.5 million papers published between 2008 and 2012. They found that in the majority of countries—including the U.S., U.K., Japan, Canada, and China—women published less than half as often as men. In countries with fewer total papers, women contributed more equally. The researchers also examined collaborations and found that women did not have has many international collaborations as men did, and that papers with women as first or last author received fewer citations than papers with men as first or last author.
The authors acknowledged that their analysis was limited since they did not assess the role that age could play in explaining gender disparities, and because paper authorship was the only ...
