Gender differences in research productivity: a bibliometric analysis of the Italian academic system

TL;DR

This bibliometric study of the Italian academic system finds gender differences in research productivity, with men generally outperforming women, but the gap is smaller than previously reported and varies across sectors and performance indicators.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of gender productivity gaps in Italy, highlighting sector-specific differences and a declining trend in the performance gap.

Findings

Men outperform women in research productivity, but the gap is decreasing.

Differences are more pronounced in quantitative indicators.

Some sectors show no significant gender performance differences.

Abstract

The literature dedicated to analysis of the difference in research productivity between the sexes tends to agree in indicating better performance for men. This study enters in the vein of work on the subject. Through bibliometric examination of the entire population of research personnel working in the scientific-technological disciplines of Italian university system, it confirms the presence of significant differences in productivity between men and women. But such differences result as being smaller than reported in a large part of the literature, confirming an ongoing tendency towards decline, and are also seen as more noticeable for quantitative performance indicators than other indicators. The gap between the sexes presents important sectorial specificities. In spite of the generally better performance of men, it can not be ignored that there are a significant number of scientific sectors in which the performance of women does not result as inferior.