Female scientists end their academic careers earlier than their male colleagues, even in disciplines where women are well represented. A study by Marek Kwiek and Lukasz Szymula (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań) tracked the publications of over 86,000 scientists across 38 countries in fields such as neuroscience, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, and agriculture. The study reveals that 19 years after publishing their first paper, women are less likely than men to continue their academic publishing careers. Among nearly 35,000 biological scientists who published their first paper in 2000, women were significantly more likely to have stopped publishing after 5, 10, or 20 years. The extent of this gender gap varies between disciplines and is illustrated in the figure below.
