By studying the publication careers of over 1.5 million scientists, we take a career-focused persepective to identify the factors inhibiting gender equity in STEM. We find that despite an improved trend towards population equality, the gender differences in career-wise productivity and impact have been growing over the last 70 years. Yet, the research outcomes of men and women year to year are essentially equivalent. Third, and most importantly, women are ending their publishing careers at higher rates than men, and this is happening across every stage of their careers.

How knowledge informs and alters disciplines is itself an enlightening, and vibrant field. This type of meta research into new findings, insights, conceptual frameworks and techniques is important, among other things, for policymakers who fund research in the hope of tackling society’s most pressing challenges, which inevitably span disciplines.