Gender differences in citation impact for 27 fields and 6 English speaking countries 1996-2014

Abstract

Initiatives addressing the lack of women in many academic fields, and the general lack of senior women, need to be informed about causes of any gender differences that may affect career progression, including citation impact. Previous research about gender differences in journal article citation impact has found the direction of any difference to vary by country and field but has usually avoided discussions of the magnitude and wider significance of any differences and has not been systematic in terms of fields and/or time. This study investigates differences in citation impact between male and female first-authored research for 27 broad fields and 6 large English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK and USA) 1996-2014. The results show an overall female first author citation advantage, although in most broad fields it is reversed in all countries for some years. International differences include Medicine having a female first author citation advantage for all years in Australia but a male citation advantage for most years in Canada. There was no general trend for the gender difference to increase or decrease over time. The average effect size is small, however, and unlikely to have a substantial influence on overall gender differences in researcher careers.