Study Finds Gender Bias Hurts All Researchers in Women-Dominated Fields

A recent study published in eLife has found that gender bias against women may be hurting all researchers in a historically women-dominated fields of study.

The authors examined data from several European organizations regrading information on thousands of researchers and grant applicants in over 40 disciplines. The authors examined the overall gender diversity of each researcher’s discipline, compared to the success rate of their grant applications and the evaluated quality of their work.

Upon analyzing their results, the authors discovered that the more woman-dominated a field was, the less successful the field’s researchers were at receiving grants. For example, in a typically male-dominated field such as philosophy, all researchers had about a 23 percent success rate of earning a grant. In comparison, the historically woman-dominated field of nursing had a success rate of only 18 percent.

“Our findings suggest that what is perceived as women’s research is valued less, whether it is a man or a woman doing the research and whether or not overt bias is to blame,” write the authors. They suggest further research in this area is needed and urge grant-awarding organizations to reexamine their current evaluation processes.