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Gender Differences in Recognition for Group Work

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Paper Summary

Paperzilla title
Co-Authorship Tax: Women Economists Get Less Credit for Joint Work

Women economists receive less credit for co-authored papers, contributing to a tenure gap. While solo-authored publications benefit men and women equally, each additional co-authored paper increases a man's tenure probability significantly more than a woman's, especially when co-authoring with men. This bias in credit attribution appears to be driven by beliefs about ability and not by actual differences in contribution, as demonstrated by experiments.

Explain Like I'm Five

This is like when kids work on a group project, but the girls don't get as much credit as the boys, even if they worked just as hard. Scientists saw this happen to grown-up economists, making it harder for women to get important jobs.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Limitations

Limited Generalizability of Experimental Findings
The experiments, while interesting, are conducted in settings that do not perfectly mirror the academic tenure process. The mTurk experiment uses predictors who are not making real tenure decisions, and the HR experiment focuses on hiring rather than tenure. This limits the generalizability of the experimental findings to the academic context.
Measurement of Paper Quality
The observational data analysis relies on a proxy for paper quality (journal rankings and citations) and may not perfectly capture the nuanced evaluations made by tenure committees.
Counterfactual Analysis Limitations
The counterfactual analysis, while suggestive, cannot definitively prove causality. Other unobserved factors could contribute to the gender gap in tenure rates.

Rating Explanation

This paper presents compelling observational and experimental evidence of a gender bias in credit attribution for group work in economics. The combination of real-world data and controlled experiments strengthens the argument. While the experimental settings don't perfectly mirror the academic world and the counterfactual analysis has limitations, the multiple approaches and robustness checks increase the validity of the findings. There's no obvious conflict of interest.

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Topic Hierarchy

Domain: Social Sciences
Subfield: Safety Research

File Information

Original Title: Gender Differences in Recognition for Group Work
Uploaded: July 14, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Privacy: Public