IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0165367.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Gender in the Publication Patterns in Mathematics

Author

Listed:
  • Helena Mihaljević-Brandt
  • Lucía Santamaría
  • Marco Tullney

Abstract

Despite the increasing number of women graduating in mathematics, a systemic gender imbalance persists and is signified by a pronounced gender gap in the distribution of active researchers and professors. Especially at the level of university faculty, women mathematicians continue being drastically underrepresented, decades after the first affirmative action measures have been put into place. A solid publication record is of paramount importance for securing permanent positions. Thus, the question arises whether the publication patterns of men and women mathematicians differ in a significant way. Making use of the zbMATH database, one of the most comprehensive metadata sources on mathematical publications, we analyze the scholarly output of ∼150,000 mathematicians from the past four decades whose gender we algorithmically inferred. We focus on development over time, collaboration through coautorships, presumed journal quality and distribution of research topics—factors known to have a strong impact on job perspectives. We report significant differences between genders which may put women at a disadvantage when pursuing an academic career in mathematics.

Suggested Citation

  • Helena Mihaljević-Brandt & Lucía Santamaría & Marco Tullney, 2016. "The Effect of Gender in the Publication Patterns in Mathematics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-23, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0165367
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165367
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0165367
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0165367&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0165367?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. Bozeman, Barry & Gaughan, Monica, 2011. "How do men and women differ in research collaborations? An analysis of the collaborative motives and strategies of academic researchers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1393-1402.
    2. Frietsch, Rainer & Haller, Inna & Funken-Vrohlings, Melanie & Grupp, Hariolf, 2009. "Gender-specific patterns in patenting and publishing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 590-599, May.
    3. Vincent Larivière & Chaoqun Ni & Yves Gingras & Blaise Cronin & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2013. "Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science," Nature, Nature, vol. 504(7479), pages 211-213, December.
    4. Adèle Paul-Hus & Rébecca L. Bouvier & Chaoqun Ni & Cassidy R. Sugimoto & Vladimir Pislyakov & Vincent Larivière, 2015. "Forty years of gender disparities in Russian science: a historical bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1541-1553, February.
    5. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 831-857, December.
    6. Zhigang Hu & Chaomei Chen & Zeyuan Liu, 2014. "How are collaboration and productivity correlated at various career stages of scientists?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1553-1564, November.
    7. Elba Mauleón & Laura Hillán & Luz Moreno & Isabel Gómez & María Bordons, 2013. "Assessing gender balance among journal authors and editorial board members," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(1), pages 87-114, April.
    8. Tobias Kiesslich & Silke B Weineck & Dorothea Koelblinger, 2016. "Reasons for Journal Impact Factor Changes: Influence of Changing Source Items," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(4), pages 1-12, April.
    9. Jevin D West & Jennifer Jacquet & Molly M King & Shelley J Correll & Carl T Bergstrom, 2013. "The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-6, July.
    10. K. C. Garg & S. Kumar, 2014. "Scientometric profile of Indian scientific output in life sciences with a focus on the contributions of women scientists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1771-1783, March.
    11. Clément Bosquet & Pierre-Philippe Combes, 2013. "Are academics who publish more also more cited? Individual determinants of publication and citation records," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 831-857, 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. Lin Zhang & Yuanyuan Shang & Ying Huang & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2022. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on publons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 145-179, January.
    2. Zhang, Lin & Shang, Yuanyuan & HUANG, Ying & Sivertsen, Gunnar, 2021. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on Publons," SocArXiv 4z6w8, Center for Open Science.
    3. Kwiek, Marek & Roszka, Wojciech, 2021. "Gender-based homophily in research: A large-scale study of man-woman collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    4. Josh Yamamoto & Eitan Frachtenberg, 2022. "Gender Differences in Collaboration Patterns in Computer Science," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    5. Mengyu Yu & Mazie Krehbiel & Samantha Thompson & Tatjana Miljkovic, 2020. "An exploration of gender gap using advanced data science tools: actuarial research community," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 767-789, May.
    6. Helena Mihaljević & Lucía Santamaría, 2021. "Disambiguation of author entities in ADS using supervised learning and graph theory methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3893-3917, May.
    7. Auschra, Carolin & Bartosch, Julia & Lohmeyer, Nora, 2022. "Differences in female representation in leading management and organization journals: Establishing a benchmark," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    8. Hamid R. Jamali & Alireza Abbasi, 2023. "Gender gaps in Australian research publishing, citation and co-authorship," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2879-2893, May.
    9. Hofmeister, Sophie & Lindenau, Johannes & Mischau, Anina & Ransiek, Anna & Solga, Heike, 2021. "Erste Befunde aus dem Projekt "MATH+ as a Research Object": Karriereziele, -wissen und -handeln, Nachwuchsförderung und Rekrutierung," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Skill Formation and Labor Markets SP I 2021-501, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    10. Marek Kwiek & Wojciech Roszka, 2022. "Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1697-1735, April.

    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. Josh Yamamoto & Eitan Frachtenberg, 2022. "Gender Differences in Collaboration Patterns in Computer Science," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    2. Gómez-Ferri, Javier & González-Alcaide, Gregorio & LLopis-Goig, Ramón, 2019. "Measuring dissatisfaction with coauthorship: An empirical approach based on the researchers’ perception," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    3. Abramo, Giovanni & Cicero, Tindaro & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2015. "Should the research performance of scientists be distinguished by gender?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 25-38.
    4. Jamal El-Ouahi & Vincent Larivière, 2023. "On the lack of women researchers in the Middle East and North Africa," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4321-4348, August.
    5. Tanya Araújo & Elsa Fontainha, 2018. "Are scientific memes inherited differently from gendered authorship?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 953-972, November.
    6. Lin Zhang & Gunnar Sivertsen & Huiying Du & Ying Huang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2021. "Gender differences in the aims and impacts of research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 8861-8886, November.
    7. Hajibabaei, Anahita & Schiffauerova, Andrea & Ebadi, Ashkan, 2022. "Gender-specific patterns in the artificial intelligence scientific ecosystem," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    8. Abdelghani Maddi & Yves Gingras, 2021. "Gender Diversity In Research Teams And Citation Impact In Economics And Management," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(5), pages 1381-1404, December.
    9. Luke Holman & Claire Morandin, 2019. "Researchers collaborate with same-gendered colleagues more often than expected across the life sciences," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-19, April.
    10. Arjun Prakash & Jeevan John Varghese & Shruti Aggarwal, 2024. "Gender of gender studies: examining regional and gender-based disparities in scholarly publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(7), pages 4471-4493, July.
    11. Clemens B. Fell & Cornelius J. König, 2016. "Is there a gender difference in scientific collaboration? A scientometric examination of co-authorships among industrial–organizational psychologists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(1), pages 113-141, July.
    12. Lin Zhang & Yuanyuan Shang & Ying Huang & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2022. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on publons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 145-179, January.
    13. Chaojiang Wu & Erjia Yan & Yongjun Zhu & Kai Li, 2021. "Gender imbalance in the productivity of funded projects: A study of the outputs of National Institutes of Health R01 grants," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(11), pages 1386-1399, November.
    14. Kong, Ling & Wang, Dongbo, 2020. "Comparison of citations and attention of cover and non-cover papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    15. Kwiek, Marek & Szymula, Łukasz, 2024. "Growth of Science and Women: Methodological Challenges of Using Structured Big Data," SocArXiv w34pr, Center for Open Science.
    16. Ann-Maree Vallence & Mark R Hinder & Hakuei Fujiyama, 2019. "Data-driven selection of conference speakers based on scientific impact to achieve gender parity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-10, July.
    17. Myrto-Panagiota Zacharof & Anna Charalambidou, 2018. "An Exploration of the Sub-Register of Chemical Engineering Research Papers Published in English," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, July.
    18. Mingyang Wang & Zhenyu Wang & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Which can better predict the future success of articles? Bibliometric indices or alternative metrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1575-1595, June.
    19. Fengyuan Liu & Petter Holme & Matteo Chiesa & Bedoor AlShebli & Talal Rahwan, 2023. "Gender inequality and self-publication are common among academic editors," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(3), pages 353-364, March.
    20. Jakub Rybacki & Dobromił Serwa, 2021. "What Makes a Successful Scientist in a Central Bank? Evidence From the RePEc Database," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(3), pages 331-357, September.

    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:pone00:0165367. 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.