How human capital, universities of excellence, third party funding, mobility and gender explain productivity in German political science

Using a unique panel dataset of virtually all German academic political scientists, we show that researchers become much more productive due to the accumulation of human capital and third party funding. We also show however, that while universities of excellence have more productive researchers, individuals who go there do not become more productive. Finally, we show how women publish only 9 percent less than men with the same level of prior publication experience, but are about 26 percent less productive over their entire career, as early productivity leads to later productivity, so that women increasingly fall behind. These results cannot be explained through the influence of childbearing. Rather, they support the ‘theory of limited differences’, which argues that small differences in early productivity accumulate to large differences over entire careers, as early success encourages later success. Apart from generally showing why political scientists publish more or less, we specifically identify accumulative advantage as the principal reason why women increasingly fall behind men over the course of their careers.

Bias Literacy

The chapter offers a quick digest of the evidence for discrimination, especially with reference to women in science and engineering in the U.S. It explains common terminology and lists relevant legislation and national policy initiatives. The chapter summarizes the difference between tradition and bias, conscious and unconscious discrimination, overt and covert discrimination, and personal versus institution bias. Drawing on research in psychology and social science, it summarizes core concepts including: gender schema, accumulative advantage, stereotype threat, implicit bias, glass ceiling, mommy track, occupational segregation, statistical profiling, climate study, and the value of diversity in learning. A short section lists some U.S. national and international approaches to measuring whether discrimination is occurring and how improvements are benchmarked. There is a list of major organizations working for diversity in the U.S., with links. Many of the concepts are more fully described in the recent U.S. national report Beyond bias and barriers (2007), which inspired this literacy effort.