Gender issues in fundamental physics: Strumia's bibliometric analysis fails to account for key confounders and confuses correlation with causation

Abstract

Alessandro Strumia recently published a survey of gender differences in publications and citations in high-energy physics (HEP). In addition to providing full access to the data, code, and methodology, Strumia (2020) systematically describes and accounts for gender differences in HEP citation networks. His analysis points both to ongoing difficulties in attracting women to high-energy physics and an encouraging—though slow—trend in improvement.