Mid-career field switches reduce gender disparities in academic publishing

Abstract

The continuing low proportions of women in most STEM fields in many countries is an ongoing concern, with no agreement about the fundamental causes or effective remedial actions. One previous study has found that professional women are more likely to switch from a (not necessarily academic) STEM career than professional women in comparable non-STEM jobs, reducing the overall numbers of STEM women. This study investigates whether the same is true for long term academics, and hence could partly account for current gender disparities. Based on the Scopus subject categories of the first and last five publications 2001–2018 of people in 31 countries with publishing careers starting after 2000, female researchers switching fields mid-career tend to move to fields with fewer women, relative to men switching fields mid-career. Thus, mid-career field changes within academia do not help to explain continuing gender disparities in publishing and other explanations must be sought.