title: Gender differences in publication output: towards an unbiased metric of research performance.
abstract: We examined the publication records of a cohort of 168 life scientists in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology to assess gender differences in research performance. Clear discrepancies in publication rate between men and women appear very early in their careers and this has consequences for the subsequent citation of their work. We show that a recently proposed index designed to rank scientists fairly is in fact strongly biased against female researchers, and advocate a modified index to assess men and women on a more equitable basis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. symondsm@unimelb.edu.au
authors.forename: Matthew R E
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Symonds
authors.forename: Neil J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Gemmell
authors.forename: Tamsin L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Braisher
authors.forename: Kylie L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Gorringe
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Elgar
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D005075:Biological Evolution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004463:Ecology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice; D011643:Publishing / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012106:Research / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006113:United Kingdom