Whenever there’s breaking news about gender disparity in the workplace, iSchool Assistant Professor Chaoqun Ni is rarely surprised. She has made gender disparity, particularly in academia in STEM fields, the center of her recent work. What she has found isn’t pretty.
Ni found that women scientists in academia don’t advance at the same rate as their male counterparts, often leading to retention issues. For the women who remain, Ni found there are significant gender differences in productivity, citation, funding, earnings, and awards across STEM fields. Ni also found that women receive an unequal distribution of authorship and are more likely to encounter authorship disputes and receive fewer authorship credits than they deserve. Finally Ni found women scientists are more likely to be penalized for being parents, in terms of research productivity and citation impact.
“While my work exposes broad gender disparity in scientific academia, I am pleased that it has
been well received,” said Ni. “I am hopeful that my work can be used to develop and address disparities and level the playing field for women scientists.”
Learn more about Chaoqun Ni’s research and read some of her work by visiting: ischool.wisc.edu/blog/staff/ni-chaoqun/