Gender-based citation differences in speech–language pathology

Abstract

Gender inequalities are well documented in science and typically favor male scientists. A particularly pervasive gender difference is undercitation of publications authored by women, resulting in profound negative effects on academic visibility and career advancement. This inequality has been documented in fields where author gender distributions are strongly skewed towards men (astronomy, physics, neuroscience). By investigating citation practices in a field that has traditionally been more accessible to female scientists (speech–language pathology, SLP), we demonstrate that gendered citation practices are mediated by author gender distribution in specific fields, rather than being a universal pattern. Specifically, our results revealed a citation pattern in SLP that overall tends to favor female authors, persists after controlling for potential confounding factors and, is particularly strong when female authors are citing publications involving female first and senior author teams. Our results suggest that the implementation of effective measures to increase the number and influence of underrepresented individuals in specific fields of science may contribute to mitigate downstream disadvantages for career advancement. However, future research in fields with different author gender distributions and consideration of additional mediating factors is required to establish a potential causal link between field specific authorship patterns and gendered citation inequality.