A Gender Gap in Academia? Publishing Behavior In Economics and Business Studies

Based on empirical research we find that women generally behave similarly to men concerning academic journal publications. This contrasts with the large literature on the aversion to risk and competitiveness. We investigate gender differences in publishing behavior for scholars in Economics and Business Studies in the German-speaking region. The analysis shows no difference between genders regarding subjectively felt publication pressure, the cutoff of giving up the submission effort, and the journal selection strategy of the initial submission. Strikingly, however, women shun submissions to the Top Five in Economics, which has major implications for career trajectories. This does not hold for scholars in Business Studies concerning A+ journals. These results may assist decision-making in universities to deal with the underrepresentation of women in academia, especially in professorships