Machine Learning Reveals Systematic Sexism in Astronomy

Now, a quantitative study published on Friday in Nature Astronomy demonstrates that gender bias in astronomical research extends even to journal citations, which are an indicator of academic prestige and are linked with better access to grant money, speaking engagements, and professional advancement. Led by Neven Caplar, a PhD student at ETH Zürich's Institute of Astronomy, the new research found that papers with male lead authors were cited 10 percent more frequently than papers led by women, even after controlling for non-gender-specific disparities such as seniority, team size, publication date, field, and academic institution. The team reached this conclusion after using machine-learning to analyze a dataset of over 200,000 papers published between 1950 and 2015 in five influential journals: Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Nature, and Science. In cases where first authors used their initials--a tactic women researchers disproportionately use to avoid gender bias--Caplar's team took extra measures to identify exceptions in publishing records that exposed authors' full names.