Gender Differences in Collaboration Patterns in Computer Science

Josh Yamamoto and Eitan Frachtenberg
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Josh Yamamoto: Department of Computer Science, Reed College, 3203 Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202, USA
Eitan Frachtenberg: Department of Computer Science, Reed College, 3203 Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202, USA

Publications, 2022, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: The research discipline of computer science (CS) has a well-publicized gender disparity. Multiple studies estimate the ratio of women among publishing researchers to be around 15–30%. Many explanatory factors have been studied in association with this gender gap, including differences in collaboration patterns. Here, we extend this body of knowledge by looking at differences in collaboration patterns specific to various fields and subfields of CS. We curated a dataset of nearly 20,000 unique authors of some 7000 top conference papers from a single year. We manually assigned a field and subfield to each conference and a gender to most researchers. We then measured the gender gap in each subfield as well as five other collaboration metrics, which we compared to the gender gap. Our main findings are that the gender gap varies greatly by field, ranging from 6% female authors in theoretical CS to 42% in CS education; subfields with a higher gender gap also tend to exhibit lower female productivity, larger coauthor groups, and higher gender homophily. Although women published fewer single-author papers, we did not find an association between single-author papers and the ratio of female researchers in a subfield.

Keywords: women in science; gender gap; collaboration patterns; computer science research; bibliometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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