The “broken pipeline” stands the test of time, as the overall progress of women in academia continues at a slow pace. Despite women publishing more studies and being cited more, and attaining more desirable first-author positions than in the mid-1990s, the general progress toward gender equality in science varies significantly from country to country and field to field. This is according to a comprehensive report released on March 8, the first report to examine such a wide range of disciplines and regions across the world over time (see “Slowly but Surely”).
Limited Progress in Publishing and Citation
A report from publisher Elsevier showed that women are still publishing fewer articles than men, and they are less likely to be recognized as first or last authors on research papers. However, citation rates were almost equal: while female authors were cited slightly less than male authors, works authored by women were downloaded at slightly higher rates.
Significant Challenges in Rectifying Gender Gaps
However, Cassidy Sugimoto, an information scientist studying gender differences at Indiana University Bloomington, points out that she expects men and women to be cited at similar rates because many research papers have multiple authors representing more than one gender. She notes that the small number of female first authors reflects the disparities that still exist in science today.
No Easy Fix
That said, fixing this broken pipeline has proven to be exceedingly difficult. Women must overcome a number of obstacles in science, ranging from unconscious gender biases to expectations of women’s roles in childcare and elder care.
In response to her findings, Elsevier has begun addressing gender balance issues in its scientific panels by setting standards for the number of men and women included. But Sugimoto warns that placing women in positions of reviewing research papers may not solve the problem: in some studies, she says, women in science have been just as likely to discriminate against other women in hiring as men have, although other studies have failed to find such hiring bias.
Global Gender Disparities in Science
Shulamit Kahn, an economist at Boston University in Massachusetts studying gender differences in science, backs up the results of many previous studies on gender disparities in research. However, she says that the multi-gender and multi-disciplinary scope of this study allows for deeper analysis and states that gender differences are not the same across the globe. What works to fix them in one place and field may not work elsewhere.
References: Elsevier. Gender in the Global Research Landscape (Elsevier, 2017). Moss-Racusin et al. PNAS, 109, 16474-16479 (2012) Williams, W. & Ceci, J., PNAS, 112, 5360-5363 (2015)
Source: https://www.nature.com/news/patchy-progress-on-fixing-global-gender-disparities-in-science-1.21598
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