Collaborative Networks as Gendered Relational Opportunity Structures in Global Science Networks

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Knowledge-Making and Educational Institutions

Abstract

Gender clearly informs women’s and men’s collaborative profiles and career activities, yet the research on these is conflicted. Some cases find parity, while others find women’s network positioning to be qualitatively different or cumulatively disadvantaging. Further, prior studies often focus on single disciplines or countries, and/or invoke cross-sectional snapshots, and large-scale analyses have been limited to less computationally-intensive network measures. Using Scopus data (2009-2023), we construct global co-authorship networks for authors in 20 region-subject pairs across two time periods (2009-2013; 2014-2018) and measures of authors' downstream productivity and citations. We hypothesize that gender affects social capital, with women receiving differential benefits from network positioning on future activity. Our independent variables include measures of (normalized) brokerage and aggregate constraint, to measures strongly associated with future productivity, and their interaction with gender. Rich author- and paper-level information allows for the inclusion of controls for gender homophily and interdisciplinarity, for region, subject, and past publication experience. We find that network benefits are contingent on gender, and discuss important variation across regions and subjects. Women’s future productivity benefits more than men’s when in network positions rich in brokerage opportunities, yet does not reach parity at any level of normalized brokerage. Yet for constraint, the largest predicted differences are between men and women who are least constrained. All else equal, the gender “discount” for women ranges between 5-7% (high brokerage, high constraint) and 14-18% (low constraint, low brokerage). Conversely, there is more equity in reward for brokerage and constraint on citation count (5% or less). We discuss the implication of these findings for traditional assumptions about the role of network dynamics in the evolution of knowledge, as well as important nuances of considering gender disparities across time and in a global science context.

Authors

• Kjersten Bunker Whittington, Reed College

• Molly M. King, Santa Clara University

• Ruodan Liu, Santa Clara University

• Megan E Frederickson, University of Toronto