Impact of family characteristics on the gender publication gap: evidence for physicists in France

Abstract

ABSTRACT The publication gender gap in science has been extensively studied. Although women have been found to be less productive than men, little is known about the reasons behind gender differences. Unique longitudinal data collected by surveying a large sample of French physicists gave us the opportunity to investigate the role of family characteristics over time. Using panel data econometrics, we confirm the existence of an average gender gap of about two-thirds of a journal article per year, and about one-third when taking into account several important control variables such as age and career characteristics. We find that female scientists suffer an average productivity loss of about one article when they have a young child, while male scientists suffer an insignificant loss. We also find that female scientists benefit from having large families, with a productivity gain of 0.63 articles per year per child.