The Gender Citation Gap in Human Geography: Indications from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Abstract

The Matilda effect describes the phenomenon that findings generated by women receive less recognition in the scientific community than those generated by men. The Matilda effect is particularly consequential in citation practice. Unequal citation rates of men and women have a direct impact on scientific career opportunities. This article traces the Matilda effect in German-speaking human geography: From a network analysis perspective, the citation relationships of 150 geography professors in more than 4,000 publications are evaluated. The results show a clear gender citation gap emerging from a gender bias. Other explanations such as structural aspects and specific network characteristics can be excluded as explanations.

玛蒂尔达效应是指女性成就在科学界的认可度低于男性。玛蒂尔达效应在文献引用中尤其严重。男性和女性引用率的不平等, 直接影响了科学职业发展机会。本文追溯了德语人文地理学的玛蒂尔达效应。利用网络分析, 本文评估了4,000多篇文章、150位地理学教授的引用关系。结果显示, 性别偏见导致了明显的性别引用差距, 这种差距与网络结构和特征无关。

El efecto Matilde describe el fenómeno de que los descubrimientos generados por las mujeres reciben menor reconocimiento en la comunidad científica que los que son generados por los varones. El efecto Matilda es particularmente consecuencial en la práctica de la citación. Las tasas de desigualdad en la citación para hombres y mujeres tienen un impacto directo sobre las oportunidades asociadas con una carrera científica. Este artículo traza el efecto Matilda en la geografía humana de los países que hablan alemán: Desde la perspectiva de un análisis de redes, se evalúan las relaciones de citación de 150 profesores de geografía en más de 4.000 publicaciones. Los resultados muestran una brecha clara en la citación por género que se derivan de un sesgo por género. Otras explicaciones, tales como los aspectos estructurales y las características específicas de la red, pueden excluirse como explicaciones.

Key Words:

• bibliometrics
• gender citation gap
• human geography
• Matilda effect
• social network analysis

关键词:

• 文献计量学
• 性别引用差距
• 人文地理学
• 玛蒂尔达效应
• 社交网络分析

Palabras clave:

• análisis de redes sociales
• bibliometría
• brecha de citación por género
• efecto Matilda
• geografía humana

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For example, economics (Ferber and Brün 2011), political science (Dion, Sumner, and Mitchel 2018), sociology (Leahey, Crockett, and Hunter 2008), ecology (Cameron, White, and Gray 2016), and science as a whole (Chatterjee and Werner 2021; Lerman et al. 2022).

2 Project number 249237273. For further information see https://geographische-netzwerkstatt.uni passau.de.

3 The self-citations were not taken into account. Nevertheless, against the backdrop of our research question, remarkable differences can be identified: On average, male GEOprofs cite their own work 45.23 times (4,613 self-citations) and female GEOprofs only 31.85 times (1,497).

4 For methodological and pragmatic reasons, we use a binary gender classification without intending to exclude or unintentionally categorize anyone.

5 Indegree centrality is a measure of node importance in a social network analysis that counts the number of incoming links that a node receives from other nodes in the network. The outdegree centrality, on the other hand, indicates the number of outgoing links of a node. There are two types of degree centrality: weighted and unweighted. The unweighted degree represents the number of contacts in the network, whereas the weighted value indicates the strength (frequency) of mentions.

6 A Mann–Whitney U test of the indegree centralities shows a significantly higher average rank of the male GEOprofs (significance level 5 percent; p = 0.0403).

7 The norm of universalism is the principle that scientific knowledge should be judged based on its empirical and logical merits, regardless of the race, gender, nationality, or other personal characteristics of the individuals who produce it. This norm emphasizes the importance of objectivity and impartiality in science, and it is a fundamental component of the scientific method (cf. Merton 1979).

8 Baseline homophily goes back to the first theorem of Blau’s (1977) structural theory.

9 Five thousand random networks are generated, which have identical group sizes as the network under investigation. The respective number of internal and external relationships is determined. The average E/I index of the random networks is called the expectable E/I index. It can be interpreted in terms of a baseline homophily for male or a baseline heterophily for female professors. This is then compared with the actual network. In addition, the percentage of random networks with a higher or lower index than the actual network is calculated. This results in the significance value.

10 A total of 820 relations between men would be expected, 921 are realized; for women, 391 would be expected and 419 realized.

11 The horizontal axis represents the cumulative percentage of the GEOprof population, starting from the lowest to the highest citation rates. The vertical axis shows the cumulative percentage of total citations earned by different percentages of the professoriate. The Gini coefficient is derived from the Lorenz curve and a numerical measure of inequality. It is a number between 0 and 1. A Gini coefficient of 0 indicates perfect equality, whereas a Gini coefficient of 1 indicates complete inequality.

12 Huang et al. (2020) showed that gender differences in reputation can also be attributed to the fact that, on average, male academics had longer careers and therefore more time to accumulate reputation.

13 The low R² and Pearsons’s r values for both the male and female GEOprofs do not indicate a strong linear correlation between the examined variables.

14 The original wording was evaluated. No coding was performed.

15 In social geography there is one woman in fifth place, in development and environment two women (third and seventh), and in economic geography there is one female (tenth).

16 CleanBib (sic) now provides an online tool that allows users to automatically evaluate the bibliography of a paper with regard to gender and ethnic diversity (Zhou et al. 2022).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philipp Aufenvenne

PHILIPP AUFENVENNE is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography at the University of Passau, Innstr. 42, DE 94032, Passau, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include science studies and social network analysis.

Christian Haase

CHRISTIAN HAASE is a Research Assistant in the Department of Geography at the University of Passau, Innstr. 42, DE 94032, Passau, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include empirical social science, social network analysis, and media and communication studies.

Malte Steinbrink

MALTE STEINBRINK was a Professor of Human Geography at the University of Passau, Germany and associated member at the School of Hospitality and Tourism at University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests were in the field of translocality studies, network analysis, and the exploration of the phenomenon of slum tourism.