Study finds gender bias in life science research paper citations

An analysis of life sciences research papers found that gender bias could be playing a role in making women's research less visible.

Those studies led by men received more citations in papers led by men, and those led by women received more citations in papers led by women. (Edward Jenner via Pexels)

Analysis of more than two million life sciences research papers revealed a strong gender bias in citations —- papers with female lead authors got far fewer citations than those led by male authors. This pattern was visible in many life sciences subfields, including those with relatively equitable gender representation.

The authors of the study published in the journal Research Policy say this imbalance is caused in part due to gender specialisation in certain research areas. But another factor may also be important — a researcher’s mentors, co-authors and friends they make at conferences are likely to share their gender identity.

The gender gap persists

Right now, a majority of the life science PhDs are earned by women, which is closing the gender gap in the number of scientists. But the number of citations that female scientists’ papers receive bias not kept up according to the study, which is why the authors wanted to understand how the gender bias changes over time, according to Nature.

Studying the disparity

For the study, the researchers categorised life-sciences papers published between 2002 and 2017 by the gender of lead authors, who they defined as the first and last authors. They then analysed how often these papers were cited in later studies. That is when they found the disparity.

Those studies led by men received more citations in papers led by men and those led by women received more citations in papers led by women. This bias turned out to be weaker among younger scientists. The study also found that most of the bias arose due to the fact that certain subfields are dominated by one gender.

Another factor at play was “gender homophily,” which is the tendency for scientists’ professional connections to be biased towards their own gender. To confirm the source of the gender bias, the author’s first name — which can be a source of gender information — with papers that did not. This citation bias persisted regardless of whether the full name was given. This suggests that factors other than direct discrimination are at work.

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