The Diversity-Innovation Paradox in Science

TL;DR

This study investigates the diversity-innovation paradox in science, revealing that underrepresented groups produce more scientific novelty but face devaluation and lower career success, highlighting ongoing stratification issues.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that underrepresented scientists generate more innovation, yet their contributions are undervalued and less rewarded, explaining persistent underrepresentation in academia.

Findings

Underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty.

Novel contributions by minorities are less likely to be adopted by others.

Impactful contributions of minorities lead to less career success.

Abstract

Prior work finds a diversity paradox: diversity breeds innovation, and yet, underrepresented groups that diversify organizations have less successful careers within them. Does the diversity paradox hold for scientists as well? We study this by utilizing a near-population of ~1.2 million US doctoral recipients from 1977-2015 and following their careers into publishing and faculty positions. We use text analysis and machine learning to answer a series of questions: How do we detect scientific innovations? Are underrepresented groups more likely to generate scientific innovations? And are the innovations of underrepresented groups adopted and rewarded? Our analyses show that underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However, their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: e.g., novel contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups. These results suggest there may be unwarranted reproduction of stratification in academic careers that discounts diversity's role in innovation and partly explains the underrepresentation of some groups in academia.