Global improvements in the representation of women in science are stalling

Julie Sojin Kim, José I. Carrasco Armijo, Samvardhan Vishnoi, Yuqi Liang, Meagan Lauber, Julian D. Cortes, Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Ugofilippo Basellini and Emilio Zagheni
Additional contact information
José I. Carrasco Armijo: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Samvardhan Vishnoi: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Aliakbar Akbaritabar: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Ugofilippo Basellini: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Emilio Zagheni: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2026-019, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: Achieving gender parity is essential for scientific innovation and equitable career opportunities. Yet gender inequality persists, rooted in the disparities in academic entry, attrition, and international mobility. Existing studies have often examined these components separately or within limited geographic or disciplinary settings. This study provides the first comprehensive assessment of both current and future global trends in gender parity in academia across more than 180 countries. We construct academic career trajectories using 47 million publication records from Scopus spanning 1996 to 2023, covering all major scientific disciplines. We then apply a demographic estimation and projection framework that decomposes gender disparities into their interdependent components: entry rates, exit rates and international migration rates. This approach enables us to identify not only whether parity is improving, but which population processes drive progress or stagnation in each country. We estimated that the number of female scholars per male scholar (GPI) increased significantly during the initial observed period. However, this progress is now stalling: the rate of improvement towards higher representation of women has stagnated in more than half of countries worldwide. Our projections up to 2040 indicate that, if current trends persist, the progress towards gender parity will slow down or reverse within the next two decades in many countries, including some that experienced prior success. These findings highlight an urgent need for global and national policies that expand equitable entry into scientific careers, reduce the disproportionately high attrition of women, and support more sustainable research production systems for women.

Keywords: Global; World; computational demography; computational social science; gender; inequality; international migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2026-019.pdf (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2026-019

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2026-019

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().