The pandemic likely affects men and women in science differently. In this commentary for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I share expectations about unfolding effects. I draw on studies that expose fundamental differences between men and women in relation to, for example, “stop-clock” policies and domestic responsibilities. Here, I highlight two important articles: Reshma Jagsi and colleagues: Women physician-scientists almost 2x as likely as male colleagues to have full-time employed spouse; women spent 8.5 hours more per week on domestic duties. Heather Antecol and colleagues: Gender neutral stop-clock policies in leading economics departments are associated with a 19 percentage points decrease…
Gender Differences in How Scientists Present the Importance of Their Research
Authors Lerchenmueller, Sorenson, and Jena analyze a set of over 6 million research articles in PubMed to determine how the promotion of research findings affects the attention the research receives. The article uses a set of techniques, from multivariable regression to natural language processing, to relate the positive framing of otherwise comparable research findings to differences in downstream citations. The work is published in the BMJ. An open education contribution summarizes the findings in the New York Times and additional analyses with a focus on career trajectories appears in the Harvard Business Review:
Research cited in Nature Immunology
We are grateful for Akiko Iwasaki acknowledging our research in outlining steps towards a more diverse science community. Importantly, evidence indicates that the metaphor of the “leaky pipeline” understates precipitous female attrition at decisive career transition points. It seems more a “gushing pipeline”.
Research covered in New York Times
We are proud that our research informs an important discourse on gender gaps in science at the case of the Salk Institute lawsuit, covered in the New York Times 2019.
The Gender Gap in Early Career Transitions in the Life Sciences
Research Policy (2018): A large portion of the gender gap in the life sciences emerges between the post-doctoral and associate professor levels. Women transition to principal investigator at about a 20% lower rate than men. Gender differences in publication records can explain about 60% of this lower rate. The remaining differential stems from women receiving less credit for their citations. Altmetric attention score: Within the top 15 of over 1,600 tracked Research Policy articles.