Female researchers who migrate for work tend to pick nearby destinations and go to fewer countries than their male counterparts. That is according to a new analysis of worldwide migration patterns, carried out by demographers in Germany and the UK. The study finds, however, that the gender gap of internationally mobile academics is closing faster than the general gender gap in science.
Academics have a long tradition of moving abroad to set up new collaborations, raise their profile and boost their careers. The new study – led by Xinyi Zhao from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock and the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford in the UK – set out to understand how migration patterns differ by gender. They also wanted to see if it this leads to any inequalities.
The study involved analysing more than 33 million research papers published between 1998 and 2017 using data from the Scopus academic database. By extracting data on institutional affiliations, the team identified “mobile” scholars as anyone whose country of affiliation changed between papers.
Over the two decades studied, the authors found that both the number of “origin” countries (where the moving researcher came from) and “destination” nations (where the researcher ended up) increased for both male and female academics. However, the range of origin and destination countries for women remained smaller than it was for men.
The study also found that the gender gap is narrowing faster among mobile scholars across all disciplines compared to the general gender gap in science. The researchers found that between 1998 and 2017, the proportion of women in research grew from around 32% to 36%. The proportion of women among mobile academics rose more sharply, jumping from 24% to 32%.
The paper speculates that the increase in mobile female scientists could be due to women increasingly migrating independently of families. The authors also point out that many initiatives now exist to promote women and gender parity in academia, and that these programmes are also focused on drawing on overseas talent.
Geographic inequality
The analysis also found geographic disparities. Despite increasing globalization, the pool of destination countries remained smaller than the pool of origin countries. This indicates that researchers tend to concentrate in a smaller range of nations – particularly those in the “global north” – leading to a brain drain elsewhere.
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Furthermore, the data showed larger gender gaps in lower-income countries, for both mobile scholars and researchers in total.
“We hope more attention can be given to female researchers from countries in the Global South to help them engage in international migration and global brain circulation,” Zhao told Physics World. “Funding agencies and support schemes could also help countries that have been mainly sending researchers overseas to attract talented people to return and develop the local science system.”
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- Source: https://physicsworld.com/a/female-academics-migrate-shorter-distances-and-to-fewer-countries-than-men-finds-study/
