Gender Equality in Academics: Are we there?

Springer, 2015

This study focuses on how research scholarship is different between male and female academics. It examines differences of gender issues in academia according to higher education systems (see also Bain and Cummings 2000) . Five countries (Australia, Brazil, China, UK and the U.S.) are chosen to explore in detail the differences in research scholarship between male and female academics. Moreover, this study raises additional questions, such as (1) “Is research productivity among female academics generally lower than that of male academics?” (2) “Is this difference simply a gender issue or are their contextual factors that are more important?” and (3) “Does it come from their individual profile or academic discipline?”

Library Philosophy and Practice, 2017

The variations in research productivity available in the scholarly world, between men and women, have always attracted the interest of many researchers across the globe. The present study aims to identify the differences in research productivity, patent creation, funding, collaboration, citation and impact between men and women across regions and disciplines over a period of time. After the comprehensive literature survey, the results of various studies were correlated in a systematic manner for further analyses to reveal the findings and draw conclusions. The findings clearly depict that comparatively, males have higher average productivity than females for all the performance indicators especially research productivity, patent creation, funding and collaboration across regions and disciplines; however, the gap is narrowing with the passage of time. The researchers have noted many factors, personal as well as academic, responsible for the limited productivity of women in research. Age, marriage, children and domestic workload are some personal factors badly affecting research productivity of women whereas less representation of women in higher education, low academic ranks, and fewer research funds are some of the academic factors affecting the research productivity negatively. In order to eliminate the gender differences in research productivity, some recommendations have been provided.

Higher Education, 2022

Many studies on research productivity and performance suggest that men consistently outperform women. However, women and men are spread unevenly throughout the academy both horizontally (e.g., by scientific field) and vertically (e.g., by academic position), suggesting that aggregate numbers (comparing all men with all women) may reflect the different publication practices in different corners of the academy rather than gender per se. We use Norwegian bibliometric data to examine how the "what" (which publication practices are measured) and the "who" (how the population sample is disaggregated) matter in assessing apparent gender differences among academics in Norway. We investigate four clusters of indicators related to publication volume, publication type, authorship, and impact or quality (12 indicators in total) and explore how disaggregating the population by scientific field, institutional affiliation, academic position, and age changes the gender gaps that appear at the aggregate level. For most (but not all) indicators, we find that gender differences disappear or are strongly reduced after disaggregation. This suggests a composition effect, whereby apparent gender differences in productivity can to a considerable degree be ascribed to the composition of the group examined and the different publication practices common to specific groups. We argue that aggregate figures can exaggerate some gender disparities while obscuring others. Our study illustrates the situated nature of research productivity and the importance of comparing men and women within similar academic positions or scientific fields-of comparing apples with apples-when using bibliometric indicators to identify gender disparities in research productivity.

Business ethics and leadership, 2023

Significant economic and social differences in the living and working conditions of men and women, structural changes in society actualize the need to research the prerequisites and consequences of the existence of gender inequality in the country. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the causes and nature of gender inequality in the long term. The object of the research is the sphere of education and science of certain countries of Europe and America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The main hypothesis of the study is the assumption of a relationship between gender inequality in the field of education and indicators of the country's social development (Human Development Index and level of education). Methodological tools of the conducted research are methods of trend and structural analysis. The information base of the research is data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations, the research period is 1950-2021. The results of the analysis of the Gender Equality Index during 1950-2000 in terms of its four dimensions (health, socioeconomic resources, gender disparity in households and gender disparity in politics) proved the presence of a significant gender gap in some countries of the world: the countries of Eastern and Western Europe are more developed compared to other regions of the world (South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa). According to the results of empirical calculations, the dependence between the level of human development and gender inequality has been proven: the higher the level of human development of the country, the lower the inequality in education. The study of gender inequality in the field of scientific research was carried out based on the analysis of publications in 50 international journals, book collections of Bengal Economic Association, Indian Economic Association and other professors of reputed institutions in India and abroad. Based on the results of the analysis, it was concluded that the publishing activity of women is lower than that of men: only 22.07% of publications in national and international journals, 23.65% of volumes of book collections and 27.90% of book chapters were published by women. The reasons for the low activity of women in the field of scientific research include: low opportunities for visiting the sites of scientific research institutions, field surveys or laboratory work; limited opportunities for training and advanced training at seminars and classes; lack of time to carry out research activities; discrimination based on personal interests and gender bias; much less interest in regular research due to social, psychological and physical reasons; excessive family load, etc.

Gender and Education, 2022

As the importance of 'excellence' increases in higher education, so too does the importance of indicators to measure research productivity. We examine how such indicators might disproportionately benefit men by analysing extent to which the separate components of the Norwegian Publication Indicator (NPI), a bibliometric model used to distribute performance-based funding to research institutions, might amplify existing gender gaps in productivity. Drawing from Norwegian bibliometric data for 43,500 individuals, we find that each element of the indicator (weighting based on publication type, publication channel, and international collaboration, as well as fractionalization of coauthorship) has a small, but cumulative effect resulting in women on average receiving 10 per cent fewer publication points than men per publication. In other words, we see a gender gap that is not only caused by a difference in the level of production but is also amplified by the value ascribed to each publication.

PLOS One, 2020

This study builds upon the literature documenting gender disparities in science by investigating research productivity and recognition among elite scientists in three countries. This analysis departs from both the general comparison of researchers across organizational settings and academic appointments on one hand, and the definition of "elite" by the research outcome variables on the other, which are common in previous studies. Instead, this paper's approach considers the stratification of scientific careers by carefully constructing matched samples of men and women holding research chairs in Canada, the United States and South Africa, along with a control group of departmental peers. The analysis is based on a unique, hand-curated dataset including 943 researchers, which allows for a systematic comparison of successful scientists vetted through similar selection mechanisms. Our results show that even among elite scientists a pattern of stratified productivity and recognition by gender remains, with more prominent gaps in recognition. Our results point to the need for gender equity initiatives in science policy to critically examine assessment criteria and evaluation mechanisms to emphasize multiple expressions of research excellence.

2021

In academia gender bias is often figured in terms of research productivity and differentials surrounding the academic work of men and women. Alesia Zuccala and Gemma Derrick posit that this outlook inherently ignores a wider set of variables impacting women, and that attempts to achieve cultural change in academia can only be realised, by acknowledging variables that are ultimately difficult to quantify.