Using bibliometric analysis of large-scale publication data is a simple approach to
exploring gender-related trends, especially gender equality in academic publishing.
The aim of this study is to investigate gender trends in the fields of bio-economy
and rural development sciences in two under develop regions as Latin America and Africa.
This study examines gender differences in these fields in order to: (1) recognize
the contribution of female researchers in bioeconomy and rural development, (2) explore
the relational structure of gender aspects in academic publications, (3) identify
trends in female authorship in these scientific research fields over time, and finally
(4) identify gender potentials for women to become more visible in these fields of
study. To achieve these objectives, we used bibliometric tools to analyses 1891 publication
records in bioeconomy and rural development. After cleaning the database of full names
of authors of academic publications relevant to the field studies, we performed a
series of statistical analyses in R and SPSS software, such as Lotkas distribution,
network analysis, co-authorship analysis and spatial distribution of authors in the
study. The results show that the number of male authors is almost three times higher
than the number of female authors, suggesting that women are under-represented in
the fields studied. Men occupy the most important position of authorship in scientific
articles; publications with corresponding male authors were found in 1389 out of 1891
publications related to the bio-economy and rural development. In terms of geographical
regions, publications with female authors were more prevalent in European and North
American areas, with a small exception in some developing countries such as Argentina
and South Africa. In terms of research networks, from the total number of authors
evaluated, only 23% are female authors on the map of research influence. This indicates
that there is a significant gap to be filled in the promotion of scholarly impact
through the sharing of knowledge and expertise among authors.
