Women researchers from non-English, low-income countries publish 70 pc fewer papers, study finds

New Delhi, Sep 19 (PTI) Inequities in scientific research, such as being a woman, belonging to a non-English-speaking or low-income country, could reduce one's chances of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal by up to 70 per cent, compared to men speaking native-English from a high-income country, according to a study.

Researchers from institutes in Australia, Germany, Colombia, Nepal, the US and UK surveyed over 900 environmental scientists and estimated that women researchers, particularly those in the early stages of their careers, published 45 per cent fewer English-language papers, compared to men.

The team explained that women are less likely to hold a tenured position and more likely to leave academia than men, thereby impacting the number of papers that one publishes.

Scientists from lower-income countries tend to be less funded than their higher-income counterparts, and non-native English speakers experience a language-based rejection up to 2.6 times more often than native English speakers, the researchers said.

"Being a woman, a non-native English speaker, and from a low-income country is associated with up to a 70 per cent reduction (in English-language publications), compared to male native English speakers from a high-income country," they wrote in the study published in the journal PLOS Biology.

"Using a survey of 908 environmental scientists, we show that being a woman is associated with up to a 45 per cent reduction in the number of English-language publications, compared to men," the team said.

The participants were at varying stages of their scientific careers and speaking Bangladeshi, Bolivian, British, Japanese, Nepali, Nigerian, Spanish, or Ukrainian. Non-English speaking women researchers published 60 per cent fewer papers, and non-English speaking women researchers from low-income countries published 70 per cent fewer, compared to men with English as the first language from high-income countries, the study found.

Accounting for non-English scientific publications, however, was found to shift rates and numbers as non-native English speakers in the early to mid-career stages were shown to publish more peer-reviewed papers than native English speakers.

Additionally, scientists from lower-income countries, too, were seen to have published more papers, compared to those from higher-income countries, upon factoring in non-English scientific publications.

However, women were still observed to publish fewer papers, compared to men, despite including both English and non-English papers. The authors added that the statistics could paint an erroneous picture that women, non-native English speakers and those from low-income countries are less scientifically productive.

They called for an explicit effort to consider one's social and economic backgrounds, along with accounting for non-English publications, while assessing performance and contribution. PTI KRS KRS MPL MPL