Within the sociology ofscience, there exists a substantial literature showing that males, on average, publish more than females. This literature directs our attention toward organizational contexts and the timing of publication aspromising factors bearing on cumulative scholarship outcomes. In thisinquiry, based on 2,910persons who received doctorates in sociology between 1972 and 1976, we isolate the importance of organizational context to explain the emergent and cumulative sex differences in publication outcomes. Ourfindings reveal that existing scholarship differences between malesand females in this cohortoccur within thefirst six years of the doctorate and continue throughout the career as a result of different employment patterns and publication trajectories. Notably, wefind supportfor RobertMerton's contention that contextstructures the display of individual merit.Empirical observations of sex-differentiated scholarship outcomes consistently show that men publish significantly more than females over the duration of a career (e.g., Cole 1979:222). Such differences are reported to be associated with the timing of first publication (Clemente 1973; Reskin 1977), departmental reputation (Allison & Long 1990;Long 1978), and the type of collegewith which one is affiliated
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