Adopting open access in an emerging country: Is gender inequality a barrier in humanities and social sciences?

Abstract

The participation of women in Vietnam's social sciences and humanities research has increased during the last several decades. However, they still face various challenges, such as the 'glass ceiling', social stereotypes, low recognition, and underrepresentation. The open-access (OA) movement, being advocated for connecting science and community and improving scientists' visibility, offers a viable platform to increase participation of female researchers. This research investigated participation of Vietnamese women in 3,122 Social Sciences & Humanities publications during 2008�2019. Results show a rapid increase in female authors during the period, rising from 47.27% to 71.43% of articles having one or more Vietnamese female author. However, the number of women as first authors remained lower than men, with only 397 publications having a female first author. Bayesian analysis showed that although the number of coauthors was positively associated with the likelihood to publish in an OA journal, there was a negative association between Vietnamese female author participation and the likelihood to publish OA, a finding that matched the effect of female contribution from other countries. These findings hint at the gender inequality induced by cultural and socio-economic factors, and we postulate that the influence of financial and other inequalities may limit the ability of women to take full advantage of OA publication to further their careers.