Gender disparities in publishing: how networks, occupational self-efficacy and the university shape the gender publication gap among professors in Germany

Lina Spagert ()
Additional contact information
Lina Spagert: Munich University of Applied Sciences, Department of Applied Social Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Publications are undoubtedly key to scientists’ careers, funding, and recognition. Although many measures have been taken to foster gender equality in science, an almost worldwide disparity persists in the publication rates between male and female researchers. Studies across various disciplines and regions have consistently shown that female scientists publish fewer articles than their male counterparts. However, little is known about the possible causes. Therefore, this article investigates why female scientists generally publish fewer articles than male scientists. To answer this question, a multiple mediation and moderation analysis was conducted, which examined network, care work, neuroticism, and occupational self-efficacy as mediators for the gender publication gap and the university type as a moderator (with age, and discipline as covariates). The PROCESS Macro for SPSS was used to carry out the calculations. The analyses were based on cross-sectional data from an online survey of 1836 German professors. The regression analyses revealed that female professors had significantly fewer publications initially than male professors (B = −27.503, p

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-06241-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-06241-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-06241-5

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().