Gender differences in dropout rate: From field, career status, and generation perspectives

Abstract

The dropout of scholars poses risks by depleting valuable resources and hindering the scientific community. Knowledge gaps on this issue lack consistency across career statuses and overlook its dynamic nature. To address this gap, we analyzed the career trajectories of over 24 million scholars in 19 fields from the MAG dataset, examining dropout rates by field, career status, and generation. Firstly, we observed an unexpectedly high proportion of transients, comprising a growing proportion of newcomers and accounting for over 50% of publications in most soft sciences. This highlights the shortage of continuants, such as scholars with full careers, who contribute to scientific communities. Secondly, our exploration into gender-specific dropout rates revealed that women exhibit a significantly higher dropout rates within the first 20 years, covering career statuses including junior dropout, early-career dropout, and mid-career dropouts. Notably, early- and mid-career dropouts demonstrate the lowest and most stable dropout rates. These insights prompted the development of a gendered scientific career model that combines changes in scholar numbers and dropout rates across career statuses. Lastly, our generational analysis spanning four generations unveiled a diminishing gender gap in dropout rates. In hard sciences, women encounter initial career challenges, with the gender gap in dropout rates decreasing over time. In contrast, the gender gap in soft sciences persists longer. These findings hold consistent across six subfields, offering implications for field evaluation, gender disparities policies, and a deeper understanding of scholarly dropout across generations.