Gendered citation patterns among the scientific elite

Kristina Lerman, Yulin Yu, Fred Morstatter and Jay Pujara
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Kristina Lerman: a Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA 90292;
Yulin Yu: b School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Fred Morstatter: a Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA 90292;
Jay Pujara: a Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, Marina del Rey, CA 90292;

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022, vol. 119, issue 40, e2206070119

Abstract: Diversity in science is necessary to improve innovation and increase the capacity of the scientific workforce. Despite decades-long efforts to increase gender diversity, however, women remain a small minority in many fields, especially in senior positions. The dearth of elite women scientists, in turn, leaves fewer women to serve as mentors and role models for young women scientists. To shed light on gender disparities in science, we study prominent scholars who were elected to the National Academy of Sciences. We construct author citation networks that capture the structure of recognition among scholars’ peers. We identify gender disparities in the patterns of peer citations and show that these differences are strong enough to accurately predict the scholar’s gender. In contrast, we do not observe disparities due to prestige, with few significant differences in the structure of citations of scholars affiliated with high-ranked and low-ranked institutions. These results provide further evidence that a scholar’s gender plays a role in the mechanisms of success in science.

Keywords: gender; bibliometrics; science of science; gender disparities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2206070119

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