Same job, different status: gender differences in societal status perception of male and female scientists

Abstract

Scientists are generally perceived as high-status individuals. This paper examines how society perceives the status of scientists in relation to their gender and context. It relies on a survey experiment conducted with 773 participants from different Italian regions who were asked to assess the status of fictional scientists of different genders. The findings reveal a gendered disparity in status attribution: male scientists are consistently perceived as high-status by both male and female participants, whereas female scientists are attributed lower status, primarily due to the evaluations made by female participants. Notably, female participants from regions with higher levels of egalitarianism attribute higher status to female scientists compared to those from less egalitarian areas, thus narrowing the status gap between male and female scientists. Our work contributes to the discourse on gender in science by demonstrating that status emerges as a distinct dimension of inequality, can be measured independently, follows a gendered pattern, and is contingent upon social contexts.