The gender gap in early career transitions in the life sciences

Marc Lerchenmueller · Olav Sorenson

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Career Development and Diversity scientometrics and bibliometrics research Diversity and Career in Medicine

Abstract

We examined the extent to which and why early career transitions have led to women being underrepresented among faculty in the life sciences. We followed the careers of 6,336 scientists from the post-doctoral fellowship stage to becoming a principal investigator (PI) – a critical transition in the academic life sciences. Using a unique dataset that connects individuals’ National Institutes of Health funding histories to their publication records, we found that a large portion of the overall gender gap in the life sciences emerges at this transition. Women become PIs at a 20% lower rate than men. Differences in “productivity” (publication records) can explain about 60% of this differential. The remaining portion appears to stem from gender differences in the returns to similar publication records, with women receiving less credit for their citations.

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References

1968The Matthew Effect in Science 1968The Matthew effect in science. The reward and communication systems of science are considered.2007The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge 2012Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students 2000Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians 2013Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science 2013The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship 2006The “Gender Gap” in Authorship of Academic Medical Literature — A 35-Year Perspective

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