IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0030458.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Primatology an Equal-Opportunity Discipline?

Author

Listed:
  • Elsa Addessi
  • Marta Borgi
  • Elisabetta Palagi

Abstract

The proportion of women occupying academic positions in biological sciences has increased in the past few decades, but women are still under-represented in senior academic ranks compared to their male colleagues. Primatology has been often singled out as a model of “equal-opportunity” discipline because of the common perception that women are more represented in Primatology than in similar fields. But is this indeed true? Here we show that, although in the past 15 years the proportion of female primatologists increased from the 38% of the early 1990s to the 57% of 2008, Primatology is far from being an “equal-opportunity” discipline, and suffers the phenomenon of “glass ceiling” as all the other scientific disciplines examined so far. In fact, even if Primatology does attract more female students than males, at the full professor level male members significantly outnumber females. Moreover, regardless of position, IPS male members publish significantly more than their female colleagues. Furthermore, when analyzing gender difference in scientific productivity in relation to the name order in the publications, it emerged that the scientific achievements of female primatologists (in terms of number and type of publications) do not always match their professional achievements (in terms of academic position). However, the gender difference in the IPS members' number of publications does not correspond to a similar difference in their scientific impact (as measured by their H index), which may indicate that female primatologists' fewer articles are of higher impact than those of their male colleagues.

Suggested Citation

  • Elsa Addessi & Marta Borgi & Elisabetta Palagi, 2012. "Is Primatology an Equal-Opportunity Discipline?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-6, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0030458
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0030458
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0030458&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0030458?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Wennerås & Agnes Wold, 1997. "Nepotism and sexism in peer-review," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6631), pages 341-343, May.
    2. Bornmann, Lutz & Mutz, Rüdiger & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2007. "Gender differences in grant peer review: A meta-analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 226-238.
    3. Herbert Marsh & Lutz Bornmann, 2009. "Do women have less success in peer review?," Nature, Nature, vol. 459(7246), pages 602-602, May.
    4. Elaine Howard Ecklund & Anne E Lincoln, 2011. "Scientists Want More Children," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(8), pages 1-4, August.
    5. Colleen E. Crangle, 2009. "Stick as well as carrot needed to solve age-old gender bias," Nature, Nature, vol. 459(7248), pages 774-774, June.
    6. Costas, Rodrigo & Bordons, María, 2007. "The h-index: Advantages, limitations and its relation with other bibliometric indicators at the micro level," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 193-203.
    7. Matthew RE Symonds & Neil J Gemmell & Tamsin L Braisher & Kylie L Gorringe & Mark A Elgar, 2006. "Gender Differences in Publication Output: Towards an Unbiased Metric of Research Performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 1(1), pages 1-5, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lynne A Isbell & Truman P Young & Alexander H Harcourt, 2012. "Stag Parties Linger: Continued Gender Bias in a Female-Rich Scientific Discipline," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-4, November.
    2. Marco Pautasso, 2015. "The Italian University Habilitation and the Challenge of Increasing the Representation of Women in Academia," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Stephanie Sardelis & Joshua A Drew, 2016. "Not “Pulling up the Ladder”: Women Who Organize Conference Symposia Provide Greater Opportunities for Women to Speak at Conservation Conferences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-20, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michał Krawczyk & Magdalena Smyk, 2015. "Gender, beauty and support networks in academia: evidence from a field experiment," Working Papers 2015-43, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    2. Marsh, Herbert W. & Jayasinghe, Upali W. & Bond, Nigel W., 2011. "Gender differences in peer reviews of grant applications: A substantive-methodological synergy in support of the null hypothesis model," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 167-180.
    3. Tahereh Dehdarirad & Anna Villarroya & Maite Barrios, 2015. "Research on women in science and higher education: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 795-812, June.
    4. Amy Hinsley & William J Sutherland & Alison Johnston, 2017. "Men ask more questions than women at a scientific conference," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Peter van den Besselaar & Ulf Sandström, 2016. "Gender differences in research performance and its impact on careers: a longitudinal case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 143-162, January.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/8741 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Lisa Geraci & Steve Balsis & Alexander J. Busch Busch, 2015. "Gender and the h index in psychology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 2023-2034, December.
    8. Tóth, Tamás & Demeter, Márton & Csuhai, Sándor & Major, Zsolt Balázs, 2024. "When career-boosting is on the line: Equity and inequality in grant evaluation, productivity, and the educational backgrounds of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions individual fellows in social sciences an," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).
    9. Kok, Holmer & Faems, Dries & de Faria, Pedro, 2022. "Pork Barrel or Barrel of Gold? Examining the performance implications of earmarking in public R&D grants," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    10. John N. Parker & Christopher Lortie & Stefano Allesina, 2010. "Characterizing a scientific elite: the social characteristics of the most highly cited scientists in environmental science and ecology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(1), pages 129-143, October.
    11. Pleun Arensbergen & Inge van der Weijden & Peter Besselaar, 2012. "Gender differences in scientific productivity: a persisting phenomenon?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 857-868, December.
    12. Jordi Duch & Xiao Han T Zeng & Marta Sales-Pardo & Filippo Radicchi & Shayna Otis & Teresa K Woodruff & Luís A Nunes Amaral, 2012. "The Possible Role of Resource Requirements and Academic Career-Choice Risk on Gender Differences in Publication Rate and Impact," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Carole J. Lee & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Guo Zhang & Blaise Cronin, 2013. "Bias in peer review," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(1), pages 2-17, January.
    14. Bradford Demarest & Guo Freeman & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2014. "The reviewer in the mirror: examining gendered and ethnicized notions of reciprocity in peer review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 717-735, October.
    15. Martha M Bakker & Maarten H Jacobs, 2016. "Tenure Track Policy Increases Representation of Women in Senior Academic Positions, but Is Insufficient to Achieve Gender Balance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-15, September.
    16. Abramo, Giovanni & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Murgia, Gianluca, 2013. "Gender differences in research collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 811-822.
    17. Heidi Prozesky & Nelius Boshoff, 2012. "Bibliometrics as a tool for measuring gender-specific research performance: an example from South African invasion ecology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 90(2), pages 383-406, February.
    18. Koch, Susanne & Matviichuk, Elena, 2021. "Patterns of inequality in global forest science conferences: An analysis of actors involved in IUFRO World Congresses with a focus on gender and geography," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Paul Siu Fai Yip & Yunyu Xiao & Clifford Long Hin Wong & Terry Kit Fong Au, 2020. "Is there gender bias in research grant success in social sciences?: Hong Kong as a case study," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, December.
    20. John Panaretos & Chrisovaladis Malesios, 2009. "Assessing scientific research performance and impact with single indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(3), pages 635-670, December.
    21. Stefano Bianchini & Patrick Llerena & Sıla Öcalan-Özel & Emre Özel, 2022. "Gender diversity of research consortia contributes to funding decisions in a multi-stage grant peer-review process," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0030458. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.