Gali Halevi - Clarivate
Evidence shows that women in academia are more likely to publish sole-authored papers than men and our findings add the additional insight that this occurs predominantly early in a woman’s career. There are several possible explanations. Earlier in their careers, women often seek tenure, and sole-authored publications are very important for promotion. Moreover, younger women may also have young children: family obligations can impede collaboration or travel. Women have been shown to have smaller networks than male counterparts, and this may reduce possible partnership opportunities. Further, collaboration can result in second or third authorship, which would reduce the impact of women’s contribution; women may be unwilling to receive less credit. Other reasons may be discrimination and bias, but these are less likely than the reasons suggested above.
6. 01
To track ethnic authorships
trends on a larger scale and
across science, we used
bibliographic authors’ last
names retrieved from articles
indexed in the Web of Science
and used the U.S. Census last
names database
02
03
04
Methodology summary
We limited our Web of
Science dataset to
publications from U.S.
institutions and U.S. authors
only, as we were using
comparative data from the
U.S. Census
Using an exact match
between authors’ last names
and U.S. Census data we were
able to match, depending on
the discipline, 75%-80% of
authors’ last names to the
U.S. Census ethnic
identification
▪
For this study we selected 5
areas of research (1)
Biochemistry (2) Biochemical
Engineering (3) Computer
Science (4) Medical research
and (5) Mathematics
8. Biotechnology
▪ The biochemistry dataset included 205,481 U.S. exclusive
publications from 2010-2020 and 128,571 unique last
names.
▪ White-identifying academics represent slightly more than
44% of all authors and remain at this level through the
years, up to 2018.
▪ In 2018 and 2019 the authorship identified as White Only
decreases to 42.5% and 41.9% respectively with a slight
increase seen in 2020.
▪ The level of Asian/Pacific Islands Only authorship remains at
the 23%-24% average, showing slight increase in 2018,
2019 and 2020. However, Black Only authorship remains
stagnant at 5.5%.
▪ Hispanic authorship shows a slight increase from 4.1% in
2010 to 5.2% in 2019 with a slight decrease in 2020 to
4.8%.
▪ Native American/ Alaska Natives’ authorship in biochemistry
is significantly lower at 0.33% with no evident increase.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
White Only Black Only Asian/Pacific
Islands Only
Native
American /
Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
Percentage
Research Community US census
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Percentage
Year
White Only Black Only
Asian/Pacific Islands Only Native American / Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
9. Mathematics
▪ The mathematics dataset contained 48,080 U.S.
exclusive publications from 2010-2020 and
17,909 unique names.
▪ The field has a majority of authors identified as
White Only. White Only authorship is approximately
47% but sees a steady decrease from 2010
onward to 45% in 2020.
▪ In contrast to biochemistry, in mathematics the gap
between White Only authorship and other ethnic
groups is larger.
▪ Asian/Pacific Islands Only authorship is estimated
at 15%-19% through the years, showing a very
slight increase in 2020.
▪ Black Only authorship is stagnant at 4.6%, while
Hispanic authorship is stagnant at approximately
3.8%. The level of Native American/Alaska Native
authors is extremely low at 0.28%.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
White Only Black Only Asian/Pacific
Islands Only
Native
American /
Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
Percentage
Research Community US census
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Percentage
Year
White Only Black Only
Asian/Pacific Islands Only Native American / Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
10. Medical research
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
White Only Black Only Asian/Pacific
Islands Only
Native
American /
Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
Percentage
Research Community US census
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Percentage
Year
White Only Black Only
Asian/Pacific Islands Only Native American / Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
▪ Our medical research dataset consisted of
102,209 U.S. exclusive publications from 2010-
2020 and 90,145 unique names.
▪ Although White Only authorship dominates, it is
steadily decreasing over time from approximately
45% in 2010 to 42% in 2020, while Asian/Pacific
Islands Only authorship is steadily increasing from
approximately 21% in 2010 to 23% in 2020.
▪ Black Only authorship is low but steady, at
approximately 5.5%.
▪ Hispanic authorship is low but steadily increasing
from approximately 4.3% in 2010 to 5.1% in
2020.
▪ Native American/Alaska Native authorship is
extremely low at approximately 0.3% in 2010 and
shows a very slight increase of 0.32% in 2020.
11. Computer science
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
White Only Black Only Asian/Pacific
Islands Only
Native
American /
Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
Percentage
Research Community US census
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Percentage
Year
White Only Black Only
Asian/Pacific Islands Only Native American / Alaska Native
Two or More Hispanic
▪ The computer science dataset included 59,117 U.S.
exclusive publications from 2010-2020 and 37,536 unique
names.
▪ Here we see relatively low representation of White Only
authors at around half the U.S. population rate, with 37.7%
in 2010, decreasing to approximately 30.7% in 2020.
▪ Asian/Pacific Islands Only authorship increased substantially
from 28.1% in 2010 to 38.1% in 2020, overtaking White
Only authorship from 2017 onwards.
▪ Black Only authorship sees fluctuations with approximately
4.2% in 2010, a slight decrease in 2012- 2013, an
increase in 2016-2017 and a decrease from 2018 onwards
to 3.8%.
▪ Hispanic authorship is also decreasing slightly through the
years from approximately 3.7% in 2010 to 3.2% in 2020.
▪ Native American/ Alaska Native authorship is lower than the
other disciplines we examined with approximately 0.24% in
2010 decreasing to 0.23% in 2020.
12. Summary
Of the fields we studied,
medical research has
the highest
representation of Black
Only authors (5.5%),
but this is still less than
half of the same group’s
representation within
the U.S. population of
12%.
Our analysis shows
that in most of the
disciplines we chose
to analyze, ethnicity
of authorship hasn’t
changed much in
the last 10 years.
Native American/Alaska
Native authorship is
very low across the
studied disciplines and
in some cases, such as
computer science, sees
decrease in
participation.
Most areas of study
that we examined in
the United States
exhibit a sustained
underrepresentation
of specific minority
groups, most notably
Black Only and
Hispanic authors.
In all areas we looked
at, publication rates
from Asian/Pacific
Islands Only authors
are vastly higher than
might be expected in
the context of the U.S.
population
1 2 3 4 5
14. 14
Authorship and Productivity of Females and
Males
We examined trends relating to women’s participation in scientific research
and the impact of their publications as seen through citations.
However, unlike previous studies, we added two dimensions: academic
age and single authorship
The choice to focus on academic age stems from the need to examine
whether there is a change in participatory levels through time,
especially to see if more females are entering and thriving in certain
scientific fields.
Creating a level playing field in which we only compared people
with the same academic age, and articles where they were the
sole author, allowed us to uncover some interesting trends over
the past decade.
For this study, we chose to analyze six fields: Chemistry,
Computer Science, Economics, Nursing, Physics and Psychiatry.
15. Methodology
05
04
03
02
01
We calculated
academic age
based on a
researcher’s
entire
publication
record, including
multi-authored
publications.
We collected data
from the Web of
Science Core
Collection and limited
it to authors with at
least one single-
author publication
affiliated with an
academic institution
in the United States.
The 74,815 authors
that have produced a
single-authored
publication between
2011 and 2021 have
collectively produced
4,095,035
publications across
their entire careers to
date.
For this study,
we chose to
analyze six fields:
Chemistry,
Computer
Science,
Economics,
Nursing, Physics
and Psychiatry.
Then, we
calculated the
academic age
(last year – first
year) for those
authors based
on their entire
career profile.
17. 01
02
03
04
01
02
03
04
Females are single
authoring papers
much earlier in
academic age than
males
academic age of
females is lower
than that of the
males in all
disciplines
females are slowly
but steadily
entering the
research arena
across disciplines
citations per
paper are lower
for single
authored female
papers than males
In later-career
ages males
publish more
single authored
papers than
females
Male authored
single authored
papers receive
more citations
across disciplines
except Nursing
Male academic
career is ‘older’
which could mean
longer career
span
Males may
develop networks
earlier in their
career and so co-
author with those
groups.
Findings Summary