There is a well-documented gap in the observed number of scientific works produced by male and female scientists. We first document that the gender gap in observed scientific productivity may be in part explained by a gender gap in the attribution of scientific credit. We find that women are approximately half as likely to be named on any given patent or publication produced by their team as their male counterparts, and women are twice as likely to be left off the coauthor list of the most cited scientific works produced by their team, relative to the papers that receive no citations. The gender gap in attribution is found across scientific fields and career stage. We then investigate some possible explanations for the gender gap in scientific credit.
Contact person: Cristina Rujan