The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning, “Lowered Cites,” — actually, not just an article but a long article — about a newly documented gender gap in academia that both reflects and contributes to a barrier inhibiting the career success of women.
Researchers at the University of Washington, who in 2012 found that women do not publish scholarly articles at rates equal to their presence in most fields, have released a study, performed at the request of The Chronicle, showing that men have been 56 percent more likely than women to cite their own scholarly work. That gap, instead of declining as more women enter the academy, has actually widened—with men self-citing 64 percent more than women over the past 10 years….
The 1.6 million papers analyzed by the University of Washington researchers contain roughly 40 million citations, one million of which are self-citations. Men represent 78.1 percent of the authors in the collection but are responsible for 84.8 percent of self-citations, while women represent 21.9 percent of the authors but are responsible for just 15.2 percent of the self-citations. Over all, that means men have cited themselves 56 percent more often than women have….
Since citation-counting has become an increasingly important component of academic evaluation, women’s relative reluctance to engage in self-citation amounts to a self-inflicted wound.
Some slogans virtually suggest themselves: “No promotion without self-promotion!” “Women of the (academic) world unite! Self-cite!”
More grist for the Ban Bossy mill.
Wow. Math is HARD!