- Women in science receive smaller research grants than men even when they have similar qualifications, a U.S. study suggests.
Disparities in funding persisted when researchers focused on men and women from the same universities, or on scientists from the 50 institutions that get the most funding from the NIH, or on recipients of the 10 most highly funded grants awarded to individual principal investigators only.For example, for the 10 highest-funded grant types, women received median awards of US$305,823 compared with US$316,350 for men.
And when researchers focused on the top 50 NIH-funded institutions, women received median awards of US$93,916 compared with US$134,919 for men. "The gender disparity in salary between men and women might be one reason," Byington, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email."Personnel costs are a major portion of grant budgets and if women are paid less than men, the overall budgets might be smaller."