Gender differences in the patterns and consequences of changing specialization in scientific careers

Lin Zhang, Fan Qi, Gunnar Sivertsen, Liming Liang and David Campbell

No ep5bx, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Changes of specialization in scientific careers is related to the so-called “essential tension” between exploration of new knowledge and exploitation of established knowledge in research and innovation. Changes of specialization are thereby assumed to influence the evolution of science in general. Research has shown that such changes may also affect the success of individual scientists in their careers. However, the gender dimension of this aspect of career development is so far understudied. There is also need for more dynamic indicators to record and interpret career developments in macro data. This study combines the gender perspective with the introduction of new indicators. We selected more than 29,000 scientists in Physics & Astronomy and studied them over six decades using a bibliographic dataset from Scopus. We find that females are less likely to change specialization than their male counterparts, and that the research performance of males is more positively affected by changing specialization. We discuss the policy implications of these findings as well as the methodological advancement related to the new indicators of career development.

Date: 2023-09-21
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/650909851e76a41aea8a9969/

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:osf:socarx:ep5bx

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ep5bx

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().