Women, non-native English speakers, and scientists from lower-income countries are publishing significantly fewer English-language peer-reviewed articles than men, native English speakers, and researchers based in higher-income countries, according to a study released on 18 September in PLOS Biology. The work, led by Tatsuya Amano of The University of Queensland, Australia, highlights systemic barriers that continue to limit equitable participation in global science.

UNESCO maintains that “all scientists … have equal opportunity to access, contribute to and benefit from science, regardless of origin or circumstance.” Yet research consistently points to persistent inequities. Women remain less likely to hold tenured academic positions, researchers in lower-income countries receive disproportionately less funding than their wealthier peers, and non-native English speakers are reported to face language-based rejection rates as much as 2.6 times higher than native speakers. While scientific progress is enriched by diversity in people and perspectives, surprisingly few studies have directly examined the combined impact of gender, language, and income on scholarly output.

To address this gap, Amano and colleagues surveyed 908 environmental scientists spanning multiple career stages and nationalities, including Bangladeshi, Bolivian, British, Japanese, Nepali, Nigerian, Spanish, and Ukrainian researchers. They measured scientific productivity as the total number of English and non-English publications produced by each participant, allowing for a more nuanced picture of output across linguistic and economic contexts.

The findings reveal stark disparities. Women—especially at early-career stages—published 45% fewer English-language papers than men. The disadvantage deepened among women whose first language was not English, who published 60% fewer papers. Strikingly, women from low-income countries with non-English first languages produced 70% fewer English-language publications than men from high-income countries whose first language was English.

However, when non-English-language publications were also included, the picture shifted. Non-native English speakers at early to mid-career stages actually published more peer-reviewed articles overall than native English speakers. Likewise, researchers based in lower-income countries outperformed those in higher-income countries in terms of total publication count. Even so, women consistently lagged behind men in combined outputs, underscoring the persistence of gendered inequities.

The authors caution that such statistics, if narrowly interpreted, could reinforce misconceptions that women, non-native English speakers, and scientists from lower-income regions are inherently less productive. Instead, they argue for more inclusive approaches to research assessment—ones that explicitly account for gender, income level, and language background, while also recognising the scholarly value of non-English publications.

As Amano and colleagues conclude, “This study highlights how language, economic status, and gender combine to create a significant and often overlooked productivity gap in science, especially when measured by English-language publications. We believe that this gap is not a true reflection of individual productivity. Rather, as a growing body of evidence shows, it stems from systemic barriers that continue to limit fair participation and full contribution to science by historically and currently underrepresented groups.”

More information: Tatsuya Amano et al, Language, economic and gender disparities widen the scientific productivity gap, PLOS Biology. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003372

Journal information: PLOS Biology Provided by PLOS