IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/11990.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Gender Gap in Public S&T Funding: The Matilda Effect in STEM Disciplines in Argentina

Author

Listed:
  • Fiorentin, Florencia
  • Pereira, Mariano
  • Suárez, Diana

Abstract

This study explores the presence of gender bias in public grants for science and technology (S&T) activities known as the Matilda effect in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) in Argentina. The empirical analysis is based on the Scientific and Technological Research Projects program (PICT in Spanish) for the period 20032015 and found that female researchers are less likely to be awarded the first time they apply for a research grant than their male counterparts (-6.2 percentage points, or p.p.). Even for follow-on applications after the first one, without having been awarded before, female researchers remain less likely to be awarded (-3.8 p.p.). However, the probability of being recurrently awarded known as the Matthew effect is the same for both male and female researchers. This paper concludes that female researchers in STEM suffer disadvantages in the allocation of public funds to finance their research projects. Only those female researchers that overcome the initial barriers and obtain their first grant can take advantage, as their male counterparts do, of the Matthew effect that makes them more likely to obtain further awards. These results suggest the need for policies aiming at reducing the initial gender gap in accessing public grants for female researchers in STEM.

Suggested Citation

  • Fiorentin, Florencia & Pereira, Mariano & Suárez, Diana, 2022. "The Gender Gap in Public S&T Funding: The Matilda Effect in STEM Disciplines in Argentina," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 11990, Inter-American Development Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:11990
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0004017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/The-Gender-Gap-in-Public-ST-Funding-The-Matilda-Effect-in-STEM-Disciplines-in-Argentina.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0004017?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. 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.
    2. Alexandre Vera-Cruz & Gabriela Dutrenit & Griselda Martinez & Arturo Torres-Vargas & Javier Ekboir, 2008. "Virtues and limits of competitive funds to finance research and innovation: The case of Mexican agriculture," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(7), pages 501-513, August.
    3. Jacques Mairesse & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2019. "Impact of family characteristics on the gender publication gap: evidence for physicists in France," Post-Print hal-02360599, HAL.
    4. Hajar Sotudeh & Nahid Khoshian, 2014. "Gender differences in science: the case of scientific productivity in Nano Science & Technology during 2005–2007," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 457-472, January.
    5. Diego Aboal & Maren Vairo, 2018. "The impact of subsidies for researchers on the gender scientific productivity gap," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(4), pages 515-532.
    6. Frandsen, Tove Faber & Jacobsen, Rasmus Højbjerg & Wallin, Johan A. & Brixen, Kim & Ousager, Jakob, 2015. "Gender differences in scientific performance: A bibliometric matching analysis of Danish health sciences Graduates," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 1007-1017.
    7. Elba Mauleón & María Bordons, 2006. "Productivity, impact and publication habits by gender in the area of Materials Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(1), pages 199-218, January.
    8. Roula Inglesi-Lotz & Anastassios Pouris, 2011. "Scientometric impact assessment of a research policy instrument: the case of rating researchers on scientific outputs in South Africa," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(3), pages 747-760, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Katarina Prpić, 2002. "Gender and productivity differentials in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 55(1), pages 27-58, September.
    11. Leon Cremonini & Edwin Horlings & Laurens K Hessels, 2018. "Different recipes for the same dish: Comparing policies for scientific excellence across different countries," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(2), pages 232-245.
    12. Núria Bautista-Puig & Carlos García-Zorita & Elba Mauleón, 2019. "European Research Council: excellence and leadership over time from a gender perspective," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 370-382.
    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. Loarne-Lemaire, Séverine Le & Bertrand, Gaël & Razgallah, Meriam & Maalaoui, Adnane & Kallmuenzer, Andreas, 2021. "Women in innovation processes as a solution to climate change: A systematic literature review and an agenda for future research," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    2. Cornelius J. König & Clemens B. Fell & Linus Kellnhofer & Gabriel Schui, 2015. "Are there gender differences among researchers from industrial/organizational psychology?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1931-1952, December.
    3. Elba Mauleón & María Bordons, 2010. "Male and female involvement in patenting activity in Spain," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 83(3), pages 605-621, June.
    4. Wu, Jiang & Ou, Guiyan & Liu, Xiaohui & Dong, Ke, 2022. "How does academic education background affect top researchers’ performance? Evidence from the field of artificial intelligence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    5. 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.
    6. Jonas Lindahl & Cristian Colliander & Rickard Danell, 2020. "Early career performance and its correlation with gender and publication output during doctoral education," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 309-330, January.
    7. Yining Wang & Qiang Wu & Liangyu Li, 2024. "Examining the influence of women scientists on scientific impact and novelty: insights from top business journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(6), pages 3517-3542, June.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Francesco Rosati, 2016. "Gender bias in academic recruitment," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(1), pages 119-141, January.
    11. Shen, Hongquan & Cheng, Ying & Ju, Xiufang & Xie, Juan, 2022. "Rethinking the effect of inter-gender collaboration on research performance for scholars," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    12. Hamzehali Nourmohammadi & Fateme Hodaei, 2014. "Perspective of Iranian women’s scientific production in high priority fields of science and technology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1455-1471, February.
    13. Hajar Sotudeh & Nahid Khoshian, 2014. "Gender differences in science: the case of scientific productivity in Nano Science & Technology during 2005–2007," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 457-472, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Jappelli, Tullio & Nappi, Carmela Anna & Torrini, Roberto, 2017. "Gender effects in research evaluation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 911-924.
    16. Thu-Trang Vuong & Hong Kong T. Nguyen & Tung Manh Ho & Toan Manh Ho & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2017. "The (In)Significance of Socio-Demographic Factors as Possible Determinants of Vietnamese Social Scientists’ Contribution-Adjusted Productivity: Preliminary Results from 2008–2017 Scopus Data," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-16, December.
    17. Whittington, Kjersten Bunker, 2018. "“A tie is a tie? Gender and network positioning in life science inventor collaboration”," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 511-526.
    18. 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.
    19. Vincent Larivière & Etienne Vignola-Gagné & Christian Villeneuve & Pascal Gélinas & Yves Gingras, 2011. "Sex differences in research funding, productivity and impact: an analysis of Québec university professors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 483-498, June.
    20. Mendonça, Joana & Reis, Anabela, 2020. "Exploring the mechanisms of gender effects in user innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Matthew effect; Matilda effect; gender bias; STEM; S&T grants; Argentina;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N46 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:idb:brikps:11990. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    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.