The impact of postdoc training on academic research productivity: what are the gender differences?

This study examines how postdoc training affects scientists' research productivity in their early career years (the first three years after receiving their doctoral degrees), in an attempt to reveal whether postdoc training contributes to enforce women's lower productivity that has been well documented in the general S&E community. Using a nationally representative sample of academic scientists and engineering from research extensive universities (n = 150), the study demonstrates that postdoc training boosts individual productivity in scientists' first three years; and the number of publications male scientists produce in the same period continues to outnumber that of female members. However, postdoc training, among these academic scientists and engineers, does not worsen women's disadvantageous status in productivity, and plays a neutral role in shaping individual productivity across the gender line.