Why Gender Gaps in Citations Persist Even in Diverse Subfields

📚 What Was Measured

This study measures gender gaps in scholarly citations across political science subfields and across methodological subfields within political science, sociology, and economics. The aim is to see how citation patterns vary with the underlying distribution of female scholars and whether increases in female representation reduce men's citation advantages.

🔎 How Citation Patterns Were Compared

• Data: all articles published from 2007–2016 in several journals.
• Scope: subfield-level comparisons within political science and comparisons of methodological subfields across political science, sociology, and economics.
• Research design: captures variation across research areas by accounting for the underlying distribution of women in each field.

📋 Hypotheses Tested

• Fields with more women will show smaller gender citation gaps, consistent with a reduction in the "Matthew effect" (men's work seen as central).
• A persistent "Matilda effect" (women's work devalued or credited to men) could produce continued undercitation of women even as diversity rises.

📈 Key Findings

• Articles authored by female scholars are significantly more likely than mixed-gender or all-male author teams to cite research by female peers.
• Citation rates vary with the overall distribution of women in a field: more gender-diverse subfields and disciplines produce smaller gender citation gaps.
• Despite greater female representation reducing the gap, undercitation of work by women remains, including in journals that publish mostly female authors.
• The results are consistent with a partial reduction of the Matthew effect but also with persistent implicit biases in citation practices (a Matilda effect in operation).

⚖️ Why It Matters

Increasing gender diversity in academia helps raise the visibility and impact of women's scholarship, but diversity alone does not eliminate biased citation practices. The persistence of undercitation highlights ongoing structural and implicit barriers to equal scholarly recognition across political science and adjacent social science methodology fields.