Women are underrepresented as sole and last authors in academic papers. Men self-cite their own work more than women, with a 6.7 percentage point gap. This gender gap in self-citation rates has risen sharply since the 1960s and 1970s, though it has evened out more in recent decades. Potential reasons for men's higher self-citation rates include evaluating their own abilities more positively, facing fewer sanctions for self-promotion, specializing more within academic fields, and publishing more papers earlier in their careers.

1. GENDER AND
ACADEMIC PUBLISHING
Molly M. King, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Santa Clara University
New Frontiers for Research on Research Conference
September 30, 2019
mmking@scu.edu @mollymking

2. Acknowledgments
Carl T. Bergstrom
Department of Biology, University of Washington
Shelley J. Correll
Department of Sociology, Stanford University
Jennifer Jacquet
Department of Environmental Studies, New York University
Jevin D. West
School of Information, University of Washington

3. Motivation:
Knowledge production is gendered
•Why care about academic publishing?
•Why study
self-citation?
Photo: dan4th on Flickr

4. • Largest single component:
1.7 million papers
Data: JSTOR Dataset
Eigenfactor.org

5. Data: “authorship” =
a person
+
a paper for which the person is
designated as a sole or co-author

6. Results: women underrepresented as sole and last authors

7. Data: authorship-to-authorship citations
Pooja Gupta, Colin Jones, and John Williams (2010)
cites the paper
Rita Paulson, Colin Jones, and Sarah Erikson (2008)
9 author-to-author citations
1 is a self-citation: Colin Jones to Colin Jones

8. Results: 6.7 p.p. gap in self-citations by gender
6.7%

9. Men and women self-citation rates
over time.

10. Potential Mechanisms:
Why might men self-cite more?
Men:
1.evaluate their abilities more positively than women.
2.face fewer social sanctions for self-promotion.
3.specialize more in academic subfields.
4.publish more papers, particularly earlier in their career.
5.publish different types of papers.

11. • The Matthew & Matilda Effects
(Rossiter 1993; Merton 1968, 1988)
• Self-citations encourage future citations (Fowler and Aksnes
2007; Barabasi et al. 2001; de Solla Price 1976)
• Pipeline implications
• New self-citation index (s-index)
(Flatt et al. 2017 Publications)
• Encouraging women to self-cite more?
• Self-Promotion & Backlash (Babcock)
Implications: What can RoR teach us?
mmking@scu.edu @mollymkingSelf-Promotion::

12. Review
• Women underrepresented as sole and last authors
King, et al. 2017. “Men set their own cites high: Gender and self-citation across fields and over time.” Socius 3: 1-22.
West, et al. 2013. “The role of gender in scholarly authorship.” PLOS ONE 8(7). e66212.
• Self-citations men : women = 1.7
• rose sharply in the 1960s and 1970s, evening out in the 1980s.

13. Extra Slides

14. Methods: Mapping Fields
Rosvall & Bergstrom, 2011. PLoS One

15. Methods: Assigning gender
• US Social Security Administration records
• Confidently assign gender: first name has the same
gender at least 95% of the (2.8 million authorships = 77%)
Challenges:
• First Initials only (first names for 2.8 / 3.6 million)
• Androgynous names (2.4%)
• Foreign names / not in SSA lists (24.3%)

16. Results:
How does self-citation vary by gender?

17. Results: How does self-citation differ by
field?

18. Results: How does self-citation differ by
field and gender?

19. Ratio of M:W self-citation over time