Gender Differences in Research Output, Funding and Collaboration

Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Andrea Schiffauerova

Abstract:

In spite of the global efforts toward gender equality, female researchers are still underrepresented in professional scientific activities. The gender gap is more seen in engineering and math-intensive technological scientific fields thus calling for a specific attention. This paper focuses on the Canadian funded researchers who are active in natural sciences and engineering, and analyses the gender aspects of researchers’ performance, their scientific collaboration patterns as well as their share of the federal funding within the period of 2000 to 2010. Our results confirm the existence of gender disparity among the examined Canadian researchers. Although it was observed that male researchers have been performing better in terms of number of publications, the impact of the research was almost the same for both genders. In addition, it was observed that research funding is more biased towards male researchers and they have more control over their scientific community as well.

Keywords: Bibliometrics, collaboration, funding, gender differences, research output.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1124859

References:

[1] Hill, C., Corbett, C., & St Rose, A. (2010). Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ERIC.
[2] O'Dorchai, S., Meulders, D., & Crippa, F. (2009). She figures 2009–Statistics and indicators on gender equality in science. Publications Office of the European Union.
[3] Mendlowicz, M. V., Coutinho, E. S. F., Laks, J., Fontenelle, L. F., Valença, A. M., Berger, W., Figueira, I. and de Aguiar, G. A. (2011). Is there a ‘gender gap’ in authorship of the main Brazilian psychiatric journals at the beginning of the 21st century? Scientometrics, 86(1), 27-37.
[4] Kretschmer, H., Pudovkin, A., & Stegmann, J. (2012). Research evaluation. Part II: Gender effects of evaluation: Are men more productive and more cited than women? Scientometrics, 93(1), 17-30.
[5] Abramo, G., D’Angelo, C. A., & Caprasecca, A. (2009). The contribution of star scientists to overall sex differences in research productivity. Scientometrics, 81(1), 137-156.
[6] Prpić, K. (2002). Gender and productivity differentials in science. Scientometrics, 55(1), 27-58.
[7] Larivière, V., Vignola-Gagné, E., Villeneuve, C., Gélinas, P., & Gingras, Y. (2011). Sex differences in research funding, productivity and impact: An analysis of Québec university professors. Scientometrics, 87(3), 483-498.
[8] Fox, M. F. (2005). Gender, family characteristics, and publication productivity among scientists. Social Studies of Science, 35(1), 131-150.
[9] Centra, J. A. (1983). Research productivity and teaching effectiveness. Research in Higher Education, 18(4), 379-389.
[10] Okubo, Y. (1997). Bibliometric indicators and analysis of research systems: Methods and examples. No. 1997/1. OECD Publishing.
[11] Sax, L. J., Hagedorn, L. S., Arredondo, M., & Dicrisi III, F. A. (2002). Faculty research productivity: Exploring the role of gender and family-related factors. Research in Higher Education, 43(4), 423-446.
[12] Stack, S. (2004). Gender, children and research productivity. Research in Higher Education, 45(8), 891-920.
[13] Puuska, H. (2010). Effects of scholar’s gender and professional position on publishing productivity in different publication types. Analysis of a Finnish university. Scientometrics, 82(2), 419-437.
[14] Hunter, L., & Leahey, E. (2010). Parenting and research productivity: New evidence and methods. Social Studies of Science.
[15] Lewison, G. (2001). The quantity and quality of female researchers: A bibliometric study of Iceland. Scientometrics, 52(1), 29-43.
[16] Gallivan, M. J., & Benbunan-Fich, R. (2006). Examining the relationship between gender and the research productivity of IS faculty. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR Conference on Computer Personnel Research: Forty Four Years of Computer Personnel Research: Achievements, Challenges & the Future, 103-113.
[17] Tower, G., Plummer, J., & Ridgewell, B. (2011). A multidisciplinary study of gender-based research productivity in the world’s best journals. Journal of Diversity Management (JDM), 2(4), 23-32.
[18] Mauleón, E., Bordons, M., & Oppenheim, C. (2008). The effect of gender on research staff success in life sciences in the Spanish national research council. Research Evaluation, 17(3), 213-225.
[19] Cole, J. R., & Zuckerman, H. (1984). The productivity puzzle: Persistence and change in patterns of publication of men and women scientists. Advances in Motivation and Achievement, 2(217-258).
[20] Ledin, A., Bornmann, L., Gannon, F., & Wallon, G. (2007). A persistent problem. EMBO Reports, 8(11), 982-987.
[21] Copenheaver, C. A., Goldbeck, K., & Cherubini, P. (2010). Lack of gender bias in citation rates of publications by dendrochronologists: What is unique about this discipline? Tree-Ring Research, 66(2), 127-133.
[22] Symonds, M. R., Gemmell, N. J., Braisher, T. L., Gorringe, K. L., & Elgar, M. A. (2006). Gender differences in publication output: Towards an unbiased metric of research performance. PLoS One, 1(1), e127.
[23] Borrego, A., Barrios, M., Villarroya, A., & Ollé, C. (2010). Scientific output and impact of postdoctoral scientists: A gender perspective. Scientometrics, 83(1), 93-101.
[24] Bordons, M., Morillo, F., Fernández, M. T., & Gómez, I. (2003). One step further in the production of bibliometric indicators at the micro level: Differences by gender and professional category of scientists. Scientometrics, 57(2), 159-173.
[25] Mauleón, E., & Bordons, M. (2006). Productivity, impact and publication habits by gender in the area of materials science. Scientometrics, 66(1), 199-218.
[26] McDowell, J. M., Singell, L. D., & Stater, M. (2006). Two to tango? Gender differences in the decisions to publish and coauthor. Economic Inquiry, 44(1), 153-168.
[27] Boschini, A., & Sjögren, A. (2007). Is team formation gender neutral? Evidence from coauthorship patterns. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 325-365.
[28] Feldt, B. (1986). The faculty cohort study: School of medicine. Ann Arbor, MI: Office of Affirmative Action.
[29] Eloy, J. A., Svider, P. F., Kovalerchik, O., Baredes, S., Kalyoussef, E., & Chandrasekhar, S. S. (2013). Gender differences in successful NIH grant funding in otolaryngology. Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery: Official Journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, 149(1), 77-83. doi:10.1177/0194599813486083; 10.1177/0194599813486083
[30] Zuckerman, H. (1987). Persistence and change in the careers of men and women scientists and engineers: A review of current research. Women: Their Under-Representation and Career Differentials in Science and Engineering. Washington: National Technical Information Service, 123-156.
[31] Waisbren, S. E., Bowles, H., Hasan, T., Zou, K. H., Emans, S. J., Goldberg, C., . . . Loeken, M. (2008). Gender differences in research grant applications and funding outcomes for medical school faculty. Journal of Women's Health, 17(2), 207-214.
[32] Godin, B. (2003). The impact of research grants on the productivity and quality of scientific research. No. 2003. INRS Working Paper.
[33] Wasserman, S. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Cambridge University Press.
[34] Borgatti, S. P. (2005). Centrality and network flow. Social Networks, 27(1), 55-71.