Publication productivity and career advancement by female and male psychology faculty: The case of Italy.

In the United States women tend to publish less than men and to be over-represented at the lower ranks of academia. This study examined the scientific productivity and career status of female and male psychology faculty in Italian universities. Psychology was selected as a discipline because for decades it has had a female majority among its doctorates. Italy was the case-study country because it has one of the highest representations of women among university faculty. This study's questions were: What is the representation of female psychology academics across faculty and high administration ranks? Is the publication productivity of female psychology academics different from that of their male peers? And finally, what institutional factors are associated with publication productivity among psychology academics? Our study focused on the 511 university psychology professors (250 women and 261 men) listed in 2004 in the Italian Ministry of Education University and Research website. We examined scientific productivity over seven years, from 1998 to 2004, using PsycINFO. We found that women represented two-thirds of assistant professors but only one third of full professors and department chairs. Overall, women published somewhat less (approximately one-third less) than men, especially in international journals and as senior authors. However, consistent with prior evidence, when multiple predictors were considered together, academic rank and institutional setting, not sex-of-faculty, were associated with publication output. This study confirms prior observations that a strong female doctoral pipeline and scientific productivity are very slow at impacting the under-representation of women at the top ranks of academia.