Emergence of Structural Inequalities in Scientific Citation Networks

Buddhika Nettasinghe; Nazanin Alipourfard; Vikram Krishnamurthy; Kristina Lerman

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2103.10944

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Emergence of Structural Inequalities in Scientific Citation Networks

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Emergence of Structural Inequalities in Scientific Citation Networks

Buddhika Nettasinghe, Nazanin Alipourfard, Vikram Krishnamurthy and Kristina Lerman

ArXiv.org

03/19/2021

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2103.10944

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Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Structural inequalities persist in society, conferring systematic advantages to some people at the expense of others, for example, by giving them substantially more influence and opportunities. Using bibliometric data about authors of scientific publications, we identify two types of structural inequalities in scientific citations. First, female authors, who represent a minority of researchers, receive less recognition for their work (through citations) relative to male authors; second, authors affiliated with top-ranked institutions, who are also a minority, receive substantially more recognition compared to other authors. We present a model for the growth of directed citation networks and show that citations disparities arise from individual preferences to cite authors from the same group (homophily), highly cited or active authors (preferential attachment), as well as the size of the group and how frequently new authors join. We analyze the model and show that its predictions align well with real-world observations. Our theoretical and empirical analysis also suggests potential strategies to mitigate structural inequalities in science. In particular, we find that merely increasing the minority group size does little to narrow the disparities. Instead, reducing the homophily of each group, frequently adding new authors to a research field while providing them an accessible platform among existing, established authors, together with balanced group sizes can have the largest impact on reducing inequality. Our work highlights additional complexities of mitigating structural disparities stemming from asymmetric relations (e.g., directed citations) compared to symmetric relations (e.g., collaborations).

Details

Title: Subtitle: Emergence of Structural Inequalities in Scientific Citation Networks
Creators: Buddhika Nettasinghe
Nazanin Alipourfard
Vikram Krishnamurthy
Kristina Lerman
Resource Type: Preprint
Publication Details: ArXiv.org
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2103.10944
ISSN: 2331-8422
Language: English
Date posted: 03/19/2021
Academic Unit: Business Analytics
Record Identifier: 9984423764102771

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