Distinct patterns of bioscience doctoral publication disparities by gender and race/ethnicity

Abstract

The ability to address the lack of diversity in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math workforce depends on inclusive and equitable training of doctoral students to succeed in the profession. An important metric used to assess equitable training in bioscience doctoral programs is the number of publications that result from a students research. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there are demographic differences in publication rates among all students in a cohort of bioscience Ph.D. programs at the University of California Los Angeles who graduated between 2011 and 2019. Using institutional data and publication database queries, we determined the number of doctoral publications parsed by authorship position, and the timing of the first publication for each student. The resulting dataset was then analyzed for the relationships between publication categories and student gender, race/ethnicity, and citizenship status. We find that female students published significantly fewer total and co-author papers compared to male students, but had the same number of first-author publications. In contrast, students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups had fewer first-author papers compared to students from well-represented groups, but similar numbers of total and co-author publications. Publication of the first doctoral paper occurred later for female versus male, and underrepresented versus well-represented students. These results provide evidence for distinct patterns of doctoral publication disparities by gender and race/ethnicity, offering insights into a key metric of bioscience student success and informing potential strategies to achieve equitable outcomes in bioscience doctoral education.