Gendered Patterns of Unmet Resource Need among Academic Researchers

Abstract

An expansive body of literature has documented how academia acts as a gendered organization, characterized by disadvantage at multiple levels. Because of data limitations, we know surprisingly little about whether and how access to the resources needed to carry out high-quality research may be gendered. This study begins to fill this gap using a newly available survey of researchers in three disciplines across five European countries. Across a wide range of resources, findings point to marked gender disparities. Women are more likely than men to say that they do not have the resources they need to do their research well and that having them would make a big difference in their work. These findings are robust to controls including academic seniority, suggesting that structural sexism contributes to resource disparities in science. Even after overcoming obstacles en route to research positions in competitive fields, women in science remain systematically disadvantaged.