December 11, 2013

Central to evaluating researchers, publication citations reflect gender bias, barrier to women


Research analyzed 5.5 million research papers, 27.3 million authorships worldwide

Whether from the trickle-down effects of having fewer female elders in science or the increased opportunities for male researchers to participate in international collaborations, barriers to women in science remain widespread worldwide, according to new work led by Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing professors.

The new cross-disciplinary quantitative analysis of academic publication patterns relating gender and research output found that female authors were underrepresented at a 30 percent to 70 percent authorship rate with males, and that for every female first author on a scientific paper there were nearly two (1.93) male first authors.