MIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimation

Author(s)
Hill, Benjamin Mako; Shaw, Aaron
Thumbnail
DownloadHill-2013-The Wikipedia Gender.pdf (153.2Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY

Publisher Policy

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.

Terms of use
Creative Commons Attribution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
Opt-in surveys are the most widespread method used to study participation in online communities, but produce biased results in the absence of adjustments for non-response. A 2008 survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation and United Nations University at Maastricht is the source of a frequently cited statistic that less than 13% of Wikipedia contributors are female. However, the same study suggested that only 39.9% of Wikipedia readers in the US were female – a finding contradicted by a representative survey of American adults by the Pew Research Center conducted less than two months later. Combining these two datasets through an application and extension of a propensity score estimation technique used to model survey non-response bias, we construct revised estimates, contingent on explicit assumptions, for several of the Wikimedia Foundation and United Nations University at Maastricht claims about Wikipedia editors. We estimate that the proportion of female US adult editors was 27.5% higher than the original study reported (22.7%, versus 17.8%), and that the total proportion of female editors was 26.8% higher (16.1%, versus 12.7%).
Date issued
2013-06
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/80697
Department
Sloan School of Management; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Journal
PLoS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Citation
Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. “The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimation.” Edited by Angel Sánchez. PLoS ONE 8, no. 6 (June 26, 2013): e65782.
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1932-6203

Collections
  • MIT Open Access Articles

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibilityContact us
MIT
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.