IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/yr8me.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Streamlining for excellence discriminates against women: A study of research productivity of 2.7 mln scientists in 45 countries

Author

Listed:
  • Letki, Natalia
  • Biały, Grzegorz
  • Sankowski, Piotr
  • Walentek, Dawid

    (University of Warsaw)

Abstract

Gender inequality in academia is well documented yet persistently difficult to eradicate. Here, we adopt a new perspective by investigating the effect of institutional design on gender gap in research productivity on the example of habilitation - a centralized performance assessment procedure. Using a new, population-based dataset comprising 2,704,688 researchers from 45 countries we show that the presence of a habilitation has unexpected gendering counter-effect on research productivity, as it systematically lowers performance of female, but not male researchers. We also show that while international mobility improves research productivity of both genders in both systems, in systems without habilitation the selection effect for mobile women is particularly strong, and their returns to mobility in terms of increased productivity are the smallest of all mobile groups. We conclude that centralised, top-down regulation of `excellence in science' causes irreparable damage to careers of female researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Letki, Natalia & Biały, Grzegorz & Sankowski, Piotr & Walentek, Dawid, 2022. "Streamlining for excellence discriminates against women: A study of research productivity of 2.7 mln scientists in 45 countries," OSF Preprints yr8me, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:yr8me
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/yr8me
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/63600e74b233120f4f430e57/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/yr8me?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. 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. Quirin Schiermeier, 2002. "Breaking the Habilitation habit," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6869), pages 257-258, January.
    3. Sara Clavero & Yvonne Galligan, 2021. "Delivering gender justice in academia through gender equality plans? Normative and practical challenges," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 1115-1132, May.
    4. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Alessandro Caprasecca, 2009. "The contribution of star scientists to overall sex differences in research productivity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(1), pages 137-156, October.
    5. Matthew B. Ross & Britta M. Glennon & Raviv Murciano-Goroff & Enrico G. Berkes & Bruce A. Weinberg & Julia I. Lane, 2022. "Women are credited less in science than men," Nature, Nature, vol. 608(7921), pages 135-145, August.
    6. Mathias W. Nielsen, 2016. "Limits to meritocracy? Gender in academic recruitment and promotion processes," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 386-399.
    7. Helen Shen, 2013. "Inequality quantified: Mind the gender gap," Nature, Nature, vol. 495(7439), pages 22-24, March.
    8. M. Sabatier & M. Carrere & V. Mangematin, 2006. "Profiles of Academic Activities and Careers: Does Gender Matter? An Analysis Based on French Life Scientist CVs," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 311-324, May.
    9. Junming Huang & Alexander J. Gates & Roberta Sinatra & Albert-László Barabási, 2020. "Historical comparison of gender inequality in scientific careers across countries and disciplines," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(9), pages 4609-4616, March.
    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. Hajibabaei, Anahita & Schiffauerova, Andrea & Ebadi, Ashkan, 2022. "Gender-specific patterns in the artificial intelligence scientific ecosystem," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    2. Nakajima, Kazuki & Liu, Ruodan & Shudo, Kazuyuki & Masuda, Naoki, 2023. "Quantifying gender imbalance in East Asian academia: Research career and citation practice," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    3. 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.
    4. Creso Sá & Summer Cowley & Magdalena Martinez & Nadiia Kachynska & Emma Sabzalieva, 2020. "Gender gaps in research productivity and recognition among elite scientists in the U.S., Canada, and South Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Zhou, Sifan & Chai, Sen & Freeman, Richard B., 2024. "Gender homophily: In-group citation preferences and the gender disadvantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    6. 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).
    7. Marina Pilkina & Andrey Lovakov, 2022. "Gender disparities in Russian academia: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(6), pages 3577-3591, June.
    8. 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).
    9. 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).
    10. Shang, Yuanyuan & Sivertsen, Gunnar & Cao, Zhe & Zhang, Lin, 2021. "Gender differences in research focused on the Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality," SocArXiv 3fapz, Center for Open Science.
    11. Zhu, Wanying & Jin, Ching & Ma, Yifang & Xu, Cong, 2023. "Earlier recognition of scientific excellence enhances future achievements and promotes persistence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    12. Rodrigo Dorantes-Gilardi & Aurora A. Ramírez-Álvarez & Diana Terrazas-Santamaría, 2021. "Is there a differentiated gender effect of collaboration with supercited authors? Evidence from early-career economists," Serie documentos de trabajo del Centro de Estudios Económicos 2021-05, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos.
    13. Nikola Komlenac & Liora Neugebauer & Jennifer Birke & Margarethe Hochleitner, 2023. "All employees benefit: arguments that help increase support for affirmative action in academic careers," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    14. 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.
    15. José García-Montalvo & Daniele Alimonti & Sonja Reiland & Isabelle Vernos, 2020. "Gender Stereotype and the Scientific Career of Women: Evidence from Biomedical Research Centers," Working Papers 1212, Barcelona School of Economics.
    16. Vasarhelyi, Orsolya & Brooke, Siân, 2022. "Computing Gender," SocArXiv admcs, Center for Open Science.
    17. Roberta Ruggieri & Fabrizio Pecoraro & Daniela Luzi, 2021. "An intersectional approach to analyse gender productivity and open access: a bibliometric analysis of the Italian National Research Council," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1647-1673, February.
    18. Wuestman, Mignon & Wanzenböck, Iris & Frenken, Koen, 2023. "Local peer communities and future academic success of Ph.D. candidates," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).
    19. Aleksandra Cislak & Magdalena Formanowicz & Tamar Saguy, 2018. "Bias against research on gender bias," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 189-200, April.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    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:osf:osfxxx:yr8me. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.