Mapping the gender attrition gap in academic psychology

TL;DR

This study analyzes the career trajectories of over 78,000 psychology researchers, revealing persistent gender disparities in retention, especially early in careers, driven mainly by differences in publication performance and barriers beyond institutional factors.

Contribution

It provides large-scale, data-driven evidence of gender attrition in psychology, highlighting the importance of early-career support to improve gender equity.

Findings

Women have higher attrition rates than men, especially early in careers.

Academic performance, especially first-authored publications, strongly influences retention.

Gender disparities persist even after controlling for publication, collaboration, and institutional factors.

Abstract

Although more women than men enter social science disciplines, they are underrepresented at senior levels. To investigate this leaky pipeline, this study analyzed the career trajectories of 78,216 psychology researchers using large-scale bibliometric data. Despite overall constituting over 60\% of these researchers, women experienced consistently higher attrition rates than men, particularly in the early years following their first publication. Academic performance, particularly first-authored publications, was strongly associated with early-career retention -- more so than collaboration networks or institutional environment. After controlling for gender differences in publication-, collaboration-, and institution-level factors, women remained more likely to leave academia, especially in early-career stages, pointing to persistent barriers that hinder women's academic careers. These findings suggest that in psychology and potentially other social science disciplines, the core challenge lies in retention rather than recruitment, underscoring the need for targeted, early-career interventions to promote long-term gender equity.