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Gender differences in scientific collaborations: Women are more egalitarian than men

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  • Eduardo B Araújo
  • Nuno A M Araújo
  • André A Moreira
  • Hans J Herrmann
  • José S Andrade Jr.

Abstract

By analyzing a unique dataset of more than 270,000 scientists, we discovered substantial gender differences in scientific collaborations. While men are more likely to collaborate with other men, women are more egalitarian. This is consistently observed over all fields and regardless of the number of collaborators a scientist has. The only exception is observed in the field of engineering, where this gender bias disappears with increasing number of collaborators. We also found that the distribution of the number of collaborators follows a truncated power law with a cut-off that is gender dependent and related to the gender differences in the number of published papers. Considering interdisciplinary research, our analysis shows that men and women behave similarly across fields, except in the case of natural sciences, where women with many collaborators are more likely to have collaborators from other fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo B Araújo & Nuno A M Araújo & André A Moreira & Hans J Herrmann & José S Andrade Jr., 2017. "Gender differences in scientific collaborations: Women are more egalitarian than men," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-10, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0176791
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176791
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Jennifer L. Berdahl & Barnini Bhattacharyya, 2024. "Do White Women Gain Status for Engaging in Anti-black Racism at Work? An Experimental Examination of Status Conferral," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 193(4), pages 839-858, September.
    3. Jyoti Paswan & Vivek Kumar Singh, 2020. "Gender and research publishing analyzed through the lenses of discipline, institution types, impact and international collaboration: a case study from India," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 497-515, April.
    4. Magdalena Formanowicz & Marta Witkowska & Weronika Hryniszak & Zuzanna Jakubik & Aleksandra Cisłak, 2023. "Gender bias in special issues: evidence from a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2283-2299, April.
    5. Mancuso, Raffaele & Rossi-Lamastra, Cristina & Franzoni, Chiara, 2023. "Topic choice, gendered language, and the under-funding of female scholars in mission-oriented research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    6. Andrea Löther & Frederike Freund, 2024. "Gender-Based Homophily in International Research Collaborations," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-19, October.
    7. Zhang, Ming-Ze & Wang, Tang-Rong & Lyu, Peng-Hui & Chen, Qi-Mei & Li, Ze-Xia & Ngai, Eric W.T., 2024. "Impact of gender composition of academic teams on disruptive output," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).
    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. Simoes, Nadia & Crespo, Nuno, 2020. "Self-Citations and scientific evaluation: Leadership, influence, and performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    10. Adrián A Díaz-Faes & Paula Otero-Hermida & Müge Ozman & Pablo D’Este, 2020. "Do women in science form more diverse research networks than men? An analysis of Spanish biomedical scientists," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Flavia Costa, 2019. "A gender analysis of top scientists’ collaboration behavior: evidence from Italy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 405-418, August.
    12. Hamid Noghanibehambari & Farzaneh Noghani, 2023. "Long‐run intergenerational health benefits of women empowerment: Evidence from suffrage movements in the US," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(11), pages 2583-2631, November.

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