Gender Disparity in Publishing Six Months after the KITP Workshop "Probes of Transport in Stars"

TL;DR

This study analyzes gender disparities in authorship of papers following a KITP workshop, revealing significant underrepresentation of women as first authors and in all-male author groups, highlighting the need for improved diversity initiatives.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence of gender disparities in scientific publishing post-workshop, emphasizing the gap between participant diversity and publication authorship patterns.

Findings

Women constituted 38% of participants but only 19% of first authors.

61% of early publications had all-male author lists.

Gender disparities in authorship exceed model predictions based on participant gender distribution.

Abstract

Conferences and workshops shape scientific discourse. The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) hosts long-term workshops to stimulate scientific collaboration that would not otherwise have taken place. One goal of KITP programs is to increase diversity in the next generation of scientists. In this analysis, we examine gender trends in authorship of papers generated as a result of the KITP program \textit{Probes of Transport in Stars}, which ran from October 11th, 2021 to December 17th, 2021. While 38\% of workshop participants were women, only 19\% of publications produced between December 1st, 2021 and June 3rd, 2022 had female first-authors. Further, of these early publications, 61\% had all-male author lists. Among publications resulting from the KITP program, the proportions of both male first-author papers and papers with all-male author lists are higher than predicted by models that take into account the gender distribution of the KITP participants. These results motivate more thorough investigations of collaboration networks at scientific conferences and workshops. Importantly, they also suggest that programs, conferences, and workshops of any kind need to take steps beyond those implemented in this KITP program to enable more diverse collaborations and address gender disparities in science.