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What's in a number? How (and why) measuring research productivity in different ways changes the gender gap Open PDF
(2018)
Nygaard, L.P.
;
Bahgat, K.
A persistent finding in studies of research productivity is the ‘gender gap’ where men seem to publish more academic research than women. However, this gap varies widely from study to study, and little has been done to explore how these claims might be sensitive to what is being measured and how. Using a dataset of publications statistics spanning five years for a Norwegian social science research institute, this paper looks at how (and why) measuring productivity in different ways provides different pictures of the gender gap. Based on the situated context of the institute, we also disaggregate the data by staff category, methodological orientation, and language background, and consider the impact of leaves of absence. We find widely varying measures of the gender gap depending on how we measure and disaggregate, and argue that different bibliometric indicators capture different aspects of research performance, including diversity of output and collaboration, which reflect different publication practices that are both gendered and situated. We suggest that looking at academic writing as a situated - and gendered - social practice offers a potential for deriving more theoretically consistent explanations for both the seeming persistence of the gender gap and the wide contextual variations. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Identifying gender disparities in research performance: the importance of comparing apples with apples Open PDF
(2022)
Nygaard, L.P.
;
Aksnes, D.W.
;
Piro, F.N.
Many studies on research productivity and performance suggest that men consistently outperform women. However, women and men are spread unevenly throughout the academy both horizontally (e.g., by scientific field) and vertically (e.g., by academic position), suggesting that aggregate numbers (comparing all men with all women) may reflect the different publication practices in different corners of the academy rather than gender per se. We use Norwegian bibliometric data to examine how the “what” (which publication practices are measured) and the “who” (how the population sample is disaggregated) matter in assessing apparent gender differences among academics in Norway. We investigate four clusters of indicators related to publication volume, publication type, authorship, and impact or quality (12 indicators in total) and explore how disaggregating the population by scientific field, institutional affiliation, academic position, and age changes the gender gaps that appear at the aggregate level. For most (but not all) indicators, we find that gender differences disappear or are strongly reduced after disaggregation. This suggests a composition effect, whereby apparent gender differences in productivity can to a considerable degree be ascribed to the composition of the group examined and the different publication practices common to specific groups. We argue that aggregate figures can exaggerate some gender disparities while obscuring others. Our study illustrates the situated nature of research productivity and the importance of comparing men and women within similar academic positions or scientific fields—of comparing apples with apples—when using bibliometric indicators to identify gender disparities in research productivity. © 2022, The Author(s).
Scientific Performance Assessments Through a Gender Lens: a Case Study on Evaluation and Selection Practices in Academia
(2018)
Nielsen, Matthias Wullum
The focus on excellence and quality assurance in the academy has spawned a significant increase in the use of bibliometric measures in performance assessments of individual researchers. This article investigates the organizational consequences of this development through a gender lens. Based on a qualitative case study of evaluation and selection practices at a Danish university, a number of potential gender biases related to the use of bibliometric performance measures are identified. By taking as default the research preferences, approaches and career paths of a succesful group of predominantly male scholars, evaluators using bibliometrics risk disadvantaging candidates diverging from the norm with implications for gender stratification. Despite these potential biases, bibliometric measures come to function as technologies supporting a managerial narrative of the gender-blind organization. They adhere to the prevailing ethos of the academic meritocracy by standardizing the criteria for organizational advancement and ensuring transparency and accountability in the selection process. While bibliometric tools in this sense may lead to the recruitment of scientists with a strong CV and track record, they may at the same time prevent many talented researchers diverging from the norm from being recognized and succeed as academics.
Gender inequality and research performance: moving beyond individual-meritocratic explanations of academic advancement Open PDF
(2016)
Nielsen, M.W.
Academic debates addressing the persistent gender gap in science reveal considerable contestation of the relevance and extent of the problem. Particular attention has been given to the question of whether women's high attrition rates should be ascribed to the structural and cultural barriers inherent to the academic system or instead individualistic matters, such as personal motivation, performance and merit. In order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this particular issue, this cross-sectional bibliometric study investigates the link between gender and research performance in the Danish context. More specifically, it compares the citation and self-citation rates, source normalized impact per publication scores and collaborative patterns of 3293 male and female researchers at a Danish university and provides evidence challenging the widespread assumption of a persistent performance gap in favour of male researchers. The result has implications for research organizations and managers, as it raises concerns about the validity of individual-meritocratic explanations of the skewed gender distributions in academia. © 2015 Society for Research into Higher Education.
Gender consequences of a national performance-based funding model: new pieces in an old puzzle Open PDF
(2017)
Nielsen, M.W.
This article investigates the extent to which the Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI) reflects the performance of men and women differently. The model is based on a differentiated counting of peer-reviewed publications, awarding three and eight points for contributions to ‘well-regarded’ and highly selective journals and book publishers, and 1 and 5 points for equivalent scientific contributions via ‘normal level’ channels. On the basis of bibliometric data, the study shows that the BRI considerably widens the existing gender gap in researcher performance, since men on average receive more BRI points for their publications than women. The article suggests two probable explanations: (A) women merely comprise 24% of the committee members determining which publication channels to classify as ‘well-regarded’ and ‘normal’, which may lead to biases in the classification process. (B) The model privileges collaborative research, which disadvantages women due to gender differences in collaborative network relations. © 2015 Society for Research into Higher Education.
Early career performance and its correlation with gender and publication output during doctoral education Open PDF
(2020)
Lindahl, J.
;
Colliander, C.
;
Danell, R.
Publishing in peer-reviewed journals as a part of the doctoral education is common practice in many countries. The publication output of doctoral students is increasingly used in selection processes for funding and employment in their early careers. Against the backdrop of this development, the aim of this study is to examine (1) how performance during the doctoral education affect the probability of attaining research excellence in the early career; and (2) if there is performance differences between males and females in the early career and to which degree these gender differences can be explained by performance differences during the doctoral education. The data consist of Swedish doctoral students employed at the faculty of science and technology and the faculty of medicine at a Swedish university. Our main conclusions are that (1) research performance during the doctoral education has a positive effect on attaining excellence in the early career; (2) there is an interaction between publication volume and excellence during doctoral education suggesting that a combination of quantity and quality in doctoral students’ performance is indicative of future excellence; (3) there are performance differences in the early career indicating that males have a higher probability of attaining excellence than females, and; (4) this difference is partly explained by performance differences during the doctoral education. © 2019, The Author(s).
Gender Disparities in International Research Collaboration: A Study of 25,000 University Professors Open PDF
(2021)
Kwiek, M.
;
Roszka, W.
In this large-scale research based on bibliometric, biographical and administrative data, we examine how gender disparities in international research collaboration differ by collaboration intensity, academic position, age, and academic discipline. The following are the major findings: (1) While female scientists exhibit a higher rate of general, national, and institutional collaboration, male scientists exhibit a higher rate of international collaboration. (2) An aggregated picture of gender disparities hides a more nuanced cross-disciplinary picture of them. (3) An analysis of international research collaboration at three separate intensity levels (low, medium, and high) reveals that male scientists dominate in international collaboration at each level. However, at each level, there are specific disciplines in which females collaborate internationally more than males. Furthermore (4), gender disparities in international research collaboration are clearly linked with age: they are the lowest and statistically insignificant for young scientists and the highest and statistically significant for the oldest scientists. Finally, we estimate the odds ratios of being involved in international research collaboration using an analytical linear logistic model. The examined sample includes 25,463 internationally visible Polish university professors from 85 universities, grouped into 24 disciplines, and 158,743 Scopus-indexed articles. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Economic Surveys published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Gender perspectives in research
(2022)
Korsvik, Trine Rogg
;
Rustad, Linda Marie
Gender perspectives in research content can provide new insights and more precise and valid research results. By gender perspectives we refer to research that includes the sex and/or gender dimension as part of the research design and analyses. The article draws attention to research ethical issues relating to how a lack of sex/gender perspectives can produce biased research results, but also how the inclusion of sex/gender perspectives can be at risk of reproducing stereotypes.
Gender bias in female physician assessments: Women considered better suited for qualitative research Open PDF
(2002)
Johansson, E.E.
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Risberg, G.
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Hamberg, K.
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Westman, G.
Objective - To analyse whether physician assessment of scientific quality is biased by gender. Design - Two fictive research abstracts on back pain treatment were constructed, one with a quantitative and one with a qualitative design. Authorship was assigned to either a woman or a man. Subjects - 1637 randomly selected Swedish physicians were asked to judge the scientific quality of the two designs in a structured assessment form. Main outcome measures - The assessments of 1364 abstracts (286 female and 394 male assessors) were analysed by chi-square test and logistic regression. Results - The quantitative design was judged the same, regardless of the gender of the author or assessor. The qualitative design, however, was ranked as more accurate, trustworthy, relevant and interesting with a female author. Women assessors upgraded female authors more than male authors, while male assessors reflected no gender differences. Assessor speciality interacted with judgement; physicians in primary care appreciated the qualitative abstract more than hospital physicians did (OR 2.78; 95% CI 1.97-3.92). Conclusion - Gender seems to affect scientific evaluations. The results are worth considering in situations where research is judged and interpreted, in medical tutoring, research guidance, peer reviewing and certainly in forming evaluation committees for research funding.
Gender, age, and broader impact: A study of persons, not just authors
(2019)
Zhang, L.
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Du, H.
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Huang, Y.
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Glänzel, W.
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Sivertsen, G.
This research-in-progress investigates whether there are differences in terms of traditional citation impact and broader impact (Mendeley, Usage and Social Media) for researchers with different social variables such as age, gender and academic position. To do this, 30,003 journal articles in Web of Science from 2011-2017 with Norwegian first authors that can be identified as persons in two other Norwegian national databases, are selected as our data sample. Among a total of 14,204 identifiable researchers as the first authors, 7,767 (55%) are men and 6,437 (45%) women. Percentile-based indicators of four different impacts are compared among different researcher cohorts. The preliminary results show that although there is a consistent male dominance in traditional citation impact, the dominance is less present in the younger cohorts where females are also better represented. Female researchers score relatively higher on broader impact indicators than on traditional citation impact indicators, sometimes clearly exceeding their male colleagues. The differences already revealed will be further studied by including academic position as another social variable, to better understand the distinct impact characteristics according to age and gender, and to provide new insights for funding and evaluation policy. © 2019 17th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2019 - Proceedings. All rights reserved.

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