Women are Credited Less in Science than are Men

Abstract

There is a well-documented gap in the observed number of scientific works produced by women and men in science, with clear consequences for the retention and promotion of women in science¹. The gap might be a result of productivity differences^2-5, or it might be due to women’s contributions not being acknowledged^6,7. This paper finds that at least part of this gap is due to the latter: women in research teams are significantly less likely to be credited with authorship than are men. The findings are consistent across three very different sources of data. Analysis of the first source - large scale administrative data on research teams, team scientific output, and attribution of credit - show that women are significantly less likely to be named on any given article or patent produced by their team relative to their peers. The gender gap in attribution is found across almost all scientific fields and career stages. The second source – an extensive survey of authors – similarly shows that women’s scientific contributions are systematically less likely to be recognized. The third source – qualitative responses – suggests that the reason is that their work is often not known, not appreciated, or ignored. At least some of the observed gender gap in scientific output may not be due to differences in scientific contribution, but to differences in attribution.