Language, economic and gender disparities widen the scientific productivity gap

Abstract

Scientific communities need to understand and eliminate barriers that prevent people with diverse backgrounds from contributing to and participating in science. However, the combined impact of individuals' linguistic, economic, and gender backgrounds on their scientific productivity is poorly understood. Using a survey of 908 environmental scientists, we show that being a woman is associated with up to a 45% reduction in the number of English-language publications, compared to men. Being a woman, a non-native English speaker, and from a low-income country is associated with up to a 70% reduction, compared to male native English speakers from a high-income country. The linguistic and economic productivity gap narrows when based on the total number of English- and non-English-language publications. We call for an explicit effort to consider linguistic, economic, and gender backgrounds and incorporate non-English-language publications when assessing the performance and contribution of scientists.