Gender Differences in Online Visibility of Early-Career Researchers

XInyi Zhao, University of Oxford
Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)
Ridhi Kashyap, University of Oxford
Emilio Zagheni, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR)

Social media has become a powerful tool for disseminating research to increase the visibility of researchers, especially for underrepresented groups, including female researchers. Gaining visibility is particularly important for early-career female researchers to accumulate scientific impact, thus helping narrow the gender gaps in academic careers. Combining publication data from Scopus with information about research dissemination from Altmetric and Twitter (Now “X”) over a period spanning 2012–2023, this study examined gender differences in the online visibility of early-career researchers. Female researchers’ first publications were more likely to be mentioned on social media, while men were more likely to self-promote their first publications. These gender gaps in the probability of self-promotion were more pronounced in Social Sciences and Humanities. To assess the impact of online visibility, we matched researchers who were mentioned online with those who were not and found that early-career female researchers gained more citations if their first publications were mentioned. However, the gender differences reversed for self-promotion, whereby early-career male researchers gained more citations from self-promotion. Our results highlight how social media helps improve the visibility of female researchers and amplify their scientific impact. Yet, persisting gender gaps in self-promotion may limit this potential and reproduce gender inequalities.

Keywords: Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Gender Dynamics, Data and Methods

See extended abstract.