When Matthew met Matilda: the Argentinean gender gap in the allocation of science and technology public grants

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses the presence of the gender gap in the process of allocation of public grants for science and technology activity – the Matilda effect – in Argentina. The empirical approach is based on the Argentinean Scientific and Technological Research Projects programme (in Spanish PICT), the main national public grant for scientific and technological projects, for the period 2003–2015. Two manifestations of the Matilda effect are verified. First, entry barriers since female researchers have lower probabilities of being selected for the first time than their male counterparts. Then, persistency barriers are also demonstrated, given that being awarded when funded immediately before is only significant among male researchers. The gap is even larger for the case of science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields of science. The cumulative nature of the Matilda effect calls for deliberated public actions to reduce the gap since horizontal instruments tend to increase the biases over time.