Gender Variations in Research Productivity: Insights from Scholarly Research

Abstract The variations in research productivity available in the scholarly world, between men and women, have always attracted the interest of many researchers across the globe. The present study aims to identify the differences in research productivity, patent creation, funding, collaboration, citation and impact between men and women across regions and disciplines over a period of time. After the comprehensive literature survey, results of various studies were correlated in a systematic manner for further analyses to reveal the findings and draw conclusions. The findings clearly depict that comparatively, males have a higher average productivity than females for all the performance indicators especially research productivity, patent creation, funding and collaboration across regions and disciplines; however, the gap is narrowing with the passage of time. The researchers have noted many factors, personal as well as academic, responsible for the limited productivity of women in research. Age, marriage, children and domestic workload are some personal factors badly affecting research productivity of women whereas less representation of women in higher education, low academic ranks, and fewer research funds are some of the academic factors affecting the research productivity negatively. In order to eliminate the gender differences in research productivity, some recommendations have been provided. Keywords Gender Variation; Gender Differences; Research Productivity; Research Performance; Research Output; Research Funding; Gender Bias; Research Impac