IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/acsxxx/v21y2018i03n04ns0219525917500114.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender Disparities In Science? Dropout, Productivity, Collaborations And Success Of Male And Female Computer Scientists

Author

Listed:
  • MOHSEN JADIDI

    (GESIS — Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany†University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany)

  • FARIBA KARIMI

    (GESIS — Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany†University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany)

  • HAIKO LIETZ

    (GESIS — Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany)

  • CLAUDIA WAGNER

    (GESIS — Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany†University of Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz, Germany)

Abstract

Scientific collaborations shape ideas as well as innovations and are both the substrate for, and the outcome of, academic careers. Recent studies show that gender inequality is still present in many scientific practices ranging from hiring to peer-review processes and grant applications. In this work, we investigate gender-specific differences in collaboration patterns of more than one million computer scientists over the course of 47 years. We explore how these patterns change over years and career ages and how they impact scientific success. Our results highlight that successful male and female scientists reveal the same collaboration patterns: compared to scientists in the same career age, they tend to collaborate with more colleagues than other scientists, seek innovations as brokers and establish longer-lasting and more repetitive collaborations. However, women are on average less likely to adopt the collaboration patterns that are related with success, more likely to embed into ego networks devoid of structural holes, and they exhibit stronger gender homophily as well as a consistently higher dropout rate than men in all career ages.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohsen Jadidi & Fariba Karimi & Haiko Lietz & Claudia Wagner, 2018. "Gender Disparities In Science? Dropout, Productivity, Collaborations And Success Of Male And Female Computer Scientists," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(03n04), pages 1-23, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:acsxxx:v:21:y:2018:i:03n04:n:s0219525917500114
    DOI: 10.1142/S0219525917500114
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219525917500114
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S0219525917500114?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Vasileiadou, Eleftheria & Vliegenthart, Rens, 2009. "Research productivity in the era of the internet revisited," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1260-1268, October.
    3. Abbasi, Alireza & Altmann, Jörn & Hossain, Liaquat, 2011. "Identifying the effects of co-authorship networks on the performance of scholars: A correlation and regression analysis of performance measures and social network analysis measures," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 594-607.
    4. Xiao Han T Zeng & Jordi Duch & Marta Sales-Pardo & João A G Moreira & Filippo Radicchi & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Teresa K Woodruff & Luís A Nunes Amaral, 2016. "Differences in Collaboration Patterns across Discipline, Career Stage, and Gender," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-19, November.
    5. Rhoten, Diana & Pfirman, Stephanie, 2007. "Women in interdisciplinary science: Exploring preferences and consequences," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 56-75, February.
    6. Ronald S. Burt, 1998. "The Gender Of Social Capital," Rationality and Society, , vol. 10(1), pages 5-46, February.
    7. McDowell, John M & Smith, Janet Kiholm, 1992. "The Effect of Gender-Sorting on Propensity to Coauthor: Implications for Academic Promotion," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(1), pages 68-82, January.
    8. Westermann, Olaf & Ashby, Jacqueline & Pretty, Jules, 2005. "Gender and social capital: The importance of gender differences for the maturity and effectiveness of natural resource management groups," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1783-1799, November.
    9. James G. March, 1991. "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 71-87, February.
    10. Christine Wennerås & Agnes Wold, 1997. "Nepotism and sexism in peer-review," Nature, Nature, vol. 387(6631), pages 341-343, May.
    11. Cosma Rohilla Shalizi & Andrew C. Thomas, 2011. "Homophily and Contagion Are Generically Confounded in Observational Social Network Studies," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 40(2), pages 211-239, May.
    12. 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.
    13. Dag W. Aksnes & Kristoffer Rorstad & Fredrik Piro & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2011. "Are female researchers less cited? A large-scale study of Norwegian scientists," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(4), pages 628-636, April.
    14. James Moody & Douglas R. White, 2000. "Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Conception of Social Groups," Working Papers 00-08-049, Santa Fe Institute.
    15. Potter Wickware, 1997. "Along the leaky pipeline," Nature, Nature, vol. 390(6656), pages 202-203, November.
    16. Katarina Prpić, 2002. "Gender and productivity differentials in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 55(1), pages 27-58, September.
    17. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Abramo, Giovanni & Aksnes, Dag W. & D’Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea, 2021. "Gender differences in research performance within and between countries: Italy vs Norway," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2).
    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. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Josh Yamamoto & Eitan Frachtenberg, 2022. "Gender Differences in Collaboration Patterns in Computer Science," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    7. 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.
    8. Hajibabaei, Anahita & Schiffauerova, Andrea & Ebadi, Ashkan, 2022. "Gender-specific patterns in the artificial intelligence scientific ecosystem," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    9. 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).
    10. Luke Holman & Devi Stuart-Fox & Cindy E Hauser, 2018. "The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-20, April.
    11. 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.
    12. 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).
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Antonio De Nicola & Gregorio D’Agostino, 2021. "Assessment of gender divide in scientific communities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3807-3840, May.
    16. 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.
    17. Kosmulski, Marek, 2015. "Gender disparity in Polish science by year (1975–2014) and by discipline," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 658-666.
    18. 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.
    19. Lu Liu & Benjamin F. Jones & Brian Uzzi & Dashun Wang, 2023. "Data, measurement and empirical methods in the science of science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(7), pages 1046-1058, July.
    20. Xiao Han T Zeng & Jordi Duch & Marta Sales-Pardo & João A G Moreira & Filippo Radicchi & Haroldo V Ribeiro & Teresa K Woodruff & Luís A Nunes Amaral, 2016. "Differences in Collaboration Patterns across Discipline, Career Stage, and Gender," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-19, November.

    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:wsi:acsxxx:v:21:y:2018:i:03n04:n:s0219525917500114. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/acs/acs.shtml .

    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.