ABSTRACT
The imperative for the South African science system to transform and become more inclusive has been well-documented in various national policy documents since 1996. In this chapter, we describe the extent to which the representation of women among South African publishing academics has transformed over a period of 12 years (2005–2016), taking into account research capacity and scientific field. The data source for our bibliometric analysis is a national database (SA Knowledgebase), which consists of close to 400,000 authorships, 80% of which have been disambiguated by gender. Our results reveal an increase, albeit slight, in the percentage of female authorships, from 31% in 2005 to 34% in 2016. However, these percentages are lower than the percentages of female research capacity, and this difference varies considerably across scientific fields. We, therefore, interpret these results within the context of each field, using the relevant empirical and theoretical literature. Our findings highlight the importance of considering both research capacity and field differences when describing and understanding women authors’ contributions to the knowledge base of a country.
