The Gender Citation Gap

Posted: 5 Aug 2013

See all articles by Daniel Maliniak

Daniel Maliniak

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Department of Political Science

Ryan M. Powers

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Political Science

Barbara F. Walter

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - School of Global Policy & Strategy (GPS)

Date Written: 2013

Abstract

This article investigates the extent to which citation and publication patterns differ between men and women in the international relations (IR) literature. Using data from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy project on peer-reviewed publications between 1980 and 2007, we show that women are systematically cited less than men after controlling for a large number of variables including year of publication, quality of publication, substantive focus, theoretical perspective, methodology, tenure status, and institutional affiliation. These results are robust to a variety of modeling choices. We then turn to network analysis to investigate the extent to which the gender of an article’s author affects that article’s relative centrality in the network of citations between papers in our sample. Articles authored by women are systematically less central than articles authored by men, all else equal. This is likely because (1) women tend to cite themselves less than men, and (1) men (who make up a disproportionate share of IR scholars) tend to cite men more than women. This is the first study in political science to reveal significant gender differences in citation patterns and is especially meaningful because citation counts are increasingly used as a key measure of research’s quality and impact.

Keywords: gender, history of the discipline, international relations

Suggested Citation

Maliniak, Daniel and Powers, Ryan M. and Walter, Barbara F., The Gender Citation Gap (2013). APSA 2013 Annual Meeting Paper, American Political Science Association 2013 Annual Meeting, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2303311

Daniel Maliniak (Contact Author)

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - Department of Political Science ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
Code 0521
La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
United States

Ryan M. Powers

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Political Science ( email )

1050 Bascom Mall
Madison, WI 53706
United States

Barbara F. Walter

University of California, San Diego (UCSD) - School of Global Policy & Strategy (GPS) ( email )

9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
United States

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