Recent Global Improvements in the Representation of Women in Science Have Stalled

Julie Kim , University of Washington
Jose Ignacio Carrasco, University of Oxford, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS).
Samvardhan Vishnoi, Northwestern University
Yuqi Liang, University of Oxford
Meagan Lauber, Boston University
Julián D Cortés, Universidad del Rosario
Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Ugofilippo Basellini, Max Planck Institute for demographic Research
Emilio Zagheni, Max Planck Institute for demographic Research

We leverage the Scopus bibliometric database of metadata on 33 million publications from 1996 to 2020 to assess recent trends in representation of women among published scholars. We estimated that the Gender Parity Index (number of female scholars per male scholar) increased significantly until around 2011. However, since then the trend towards higher representation of women has stagnated across the large majority of countries worldwide. Our projections indicate that, if current trends persist, gender gaps are likely to increase or to stabilize over the next decade. We identified three demographic determinants of observed trends. First, the rate at which women enter academia has decreased, relative to men; second, the rate at which women exit academia, relative to men, has been fairly stable over time; third, even within a context of enhancement of gender parity in academia, the career length of female scholars has not notably increased.

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