How does research productivity relate to gender? Analyzing gender differences for multiple publication dimensions

Abstract

Measures of research productivity have become widely used for obtaining tenure, third-party funding, and additional resources from universities. However, previous studies indicate that men might have a higher research output than women, with mixed conclusions about the factors that drive these differences. This study explores to what extent the research productivity of psychology professors in Germany is related to gender and, furthermore, how any gender gaps can be explained by controlling for individual and organizational factors. In addition, three publication dimensions (publications in top 10% journals, journal articles, and book and collection chapters) are distinguished to determine the effect of gender on research productivity as precisely as possible. A unique data set based on all full professors in psychology in Germany and their publication record in 2013 and 2014 is used ( $$N_\mathrm{authors}$$ = 294; $$N_\mathrm{articles}$$ = 2252, $$N_\mathrm{chapters}$$ = 439). Thus, this study provides a current overview of the state of research productivity in an entire discipline after researchers receive tenure and external restrictions are lessened. Our research helps to further locate the point at which gender differences in publication numbers occur. As we are the first to systematically to analyze different publication types, we are able to show that there is no difference in publication numbers for less-prestigious book chapters. However, we find significant gender differences for research productivity in academic journals that are more important for career advancement and peer recognition, even after we control for the most important individual and organizational factors that might explain gender differences. Our results point to the direction that women do research and write manuscripts, but may have different publication patterns: instead of submitting to competitive journals, they may be satisfied with less-prestigious book chapters. As publications in peer-reviewed journals are especially important for career advancement as well as peer recognition, this publication pattern may be disadvantageous for women. Overall, we conclude that additional research to understand these developments is needed that focuses on the motives and beliefs of researchers, both to improve gender equality in academia and to give women better chances to gain recognition and prestige.