Gender Gaps in Academia: Global Evidence Over the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Using the largest database of academics ever assembled, we analyze gender gaps in hiring, publications, citations, and promotions over an unprecedented time span and geographic coverage. First, we document an increasing share of female academics over the 20th century, in particular since 1970, with substantial heterogeneity across countries and disciplines. Second, we estimate gender gaps in publications of about -0.3sd. We uncover a U-shaped relationship of publication gaps as a function of the share of women in academia. A Roy model rationalizes this relationship and indicates persistent positive selection of women into academia throughout the 20th century. Third, we estimate negative gender gaps in citations. To control for gender differences in research topics, we develop a novel machine-learning approach that predicts the citations of each paper, as if it had been written by men. Fourth, we estimate negative gender gaps in promotions, which persist even controlling for publications.