Gender differences in research performance and its impact on careers: a longitudinal case study

Abstract

We take up the issue of performance differences between male and female researchers, and investigate the change of performance differences during the early career. In a previous paper it was shown that among starting researchers gendered performance differences seem small to non-existent (Van Arensbergen et al. 2012). If the differences do not occur in the early career anymore, they may emerge in a later period, or may remain absent. In this paper we use the same sample of male and female researchers, but now compare performance levels about 10 years later. We use various performance indicators: full/fractional counted productivity, citation impact, and relative citation impact in terms of the share of papers in the top 10 % highly cited papers. After the 10 years period, productivity of male researchers has grown faster than of female researcher, but the field normalized (relative) citation impact indicators of male and female researchers remain about equal. Furthermore, performance data do explain to a certain extent why male careers in our sample develop much faster than female researchers’ careers; but controlling for performance differences, we find that gender is an important determinant too. Consequently, the process of hiring academic staff still remains biased.

The Changing Face of Epidemiology

“…This gender disparity in citations is consistent with several studies across disciplines, 1–4,32,35–37 although reasons for such a disparity remain unclear 2,4,38 . Unlike many studies in other fields that did not consider seniority, this study accounted for confounding due to seniority 37 and still found similar results.…”

“…1 Women scientists also tend to publish fewer last-author articles than men and accrue fewer citations per publication, 2–4 though the pattern varies by scientific field and geographic region. 5 …”

What is the Required Level of Data Cleaning? A Research Evaluation Case

“…[9] The first conclusion remains when using the new data; however, the second not, as it was based exactly on the patterns in the top of the performance: with the original dataset, slightly more women were in the top of the performance distribution, but this was not the case anymore with the corrected data (note 5). [10] We also show the graphs for the error in the citation counts [ Figures 3 and 4]. Here, we find a similar pattern as with publications: a few overestimated applicants and a few strongly underestimated (successful) applicants.…”

The trouble with girls: obstacles to women’s success in medicine and research—an essay by Laurie Garrett

“…In a 2004 survey women were awarded just 36% of science PhDs, 33% of junior faculty positions, and 11% of tenured senior faculty slots in Europe. An international survey found that women in medical and science academia were far less likely than male peers to become full or associate professors (60% of appropriately trained men versus 31% of women) 4. And women were more likely to fill lower status academic slots: “researcher,” assistant professor, or adjunct teaching positions (about 38% of men in total versus 63% of women).…”