Gender differences in citation impact for 27 fields and six English-speaking countries 1996–2014

Mike Thelwall

doi:10.1162/qss_a_00038

Abstract

Initiatives addressing the lack of women in many academic fields, and the general lack of senior women, need to be informed about the causes of any gender differences that may affect career progression, including citation impact. Previous research about gender differences in journal article citation impact has found the direction of any difference to vary by country and field, but has usually avoided discussions of the magnitude and wider significance of any differences and has not been systematic in terms of fields and/or time. This study investigates differences in citation impact between male and female first-authored research for 27 broad fields and six large English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA) from 1996 to 2014. The results show an overall female first author citation advantage, although in most broad fields it is reversed in all countries for some years. International differences include Medicine having a female first author citation advantage for all years in Australia, but a male citation advantage for most years in Canada. There was no general trend for the gender difference to increase or decrease over time. The average effect size is small, however, and unlikely to have a substantial influence on overall gender differences in researcher careers.

Highlights

Gender differences have disappeared or greatly shrunk in many areas of life, such as academic achievement at school and employment rates, reflecting broadly similar psychological capabilities (Hyde, 2005)
The proportion of women is increasing overall, with women forming the majority in some fields, such as nursing and psychology
It is more common for there to be a statistically significant advantage for women than for men, and for the average effect size to be in favor of women (Figures 1–12)

Summary

Introduction

Gender differences have disappeared or greatly shrunk in many areas of life, such as academic achievement at school and employment rates, reflecting broadly similar psychological capabilities (Hyde, 2005). They are pervasive in some aspects of life in many countries, such as average income and job choices. The proportion of women is increasing overall, with women forming the majority in some fields, such as nursing and psychology (depending on the country). Previous studies have found that women are more, or less cited than men overall, depending on country and field (Elsevier, 2017; Larivière, Ni, et al, 2013; Thelwall, 2018a). Within medicine, a small male first author citation advantage has been attributed to greater male self-citations, journal prestige, and international collaboration (Andersen, Schneider, et al, 2019), but another medicine-based study found that

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