Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

Herman van de Werfhorst 🟥 @hermwerf.bsky.social · 5d

COVID has reduced the number of papers published by NL-based scholars, but it has not increased the gender gap. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Knowledge lost, parity gained? COVID-19 and gender gaps in Dutch academia - Scientometrics

We investigated the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted long-standing gender inequalities in Dutch academia. Dutch academia is an ideal case to gain insight on exacerbated gender differentials due to COVID-19 on employees, because men and women face comparable institutional contexts and any COVID-19 impact becomes visible and measurable fast through potentially decreased yearly publications. We reconstructed the complete publishing careers up till 2022 of more than 8000 Dutch scientists who received a PhD from 1990 onwards and still had an active publication career before the pandemic started. We compared the publication dip between men and women during COVID-19. Our data allowed us to investigate whether the gendered impact of COVID-19 varied across research domains, different PhD cohorts and type of research output. We consistently find that COVID-19 did not have more severe consequences on research output for women than for men.

link.springer.com

1 3 3

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

This is a key paper in the growing literature on the effects of COVID-19 on academia. It is done purely with webscraped data, and it is a showcase how you can do fine-grained analyses if you put in the work.

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

But:
- Barriers to productivity remain persistent for women scientists
- Yet, the productivity gender gap did not widen during COVID

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

📖 What did we find?
- During COVID-19, scientists published about 33% fewer papers
- Dutch science was hit hard: “lost” around 20,000 publications
- Scientists with childcare responsibilities struggled to maintain productivity
- Researchers with a migration background were also hit harder

1 1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

🔭 We analyzed publication data from more than 8,000 scientists across all disciplines at all Dutch universities, covering the period from 1990 to 2022.

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

🧐 We asked whether women in Dutch science show a stronger productivity decline than men during COVID-19

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · 5d

I'm thrilled to share our latest study, published open access in Scientometrics. The paper is by Jochem Tolsma, myself, and Anne Maaike Mulders.

Here's the paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Here's the replication website: coviddutchacademia.netlify.app

Knowledge lost, parity gained? COVID-19 and gender gaps in Dutch academia - Scientometrics

We investigated the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted long-standing gender inequalities in Dutch academia. Dutch academia is an ideal case to gain insight on exacerbated gender differentials due to COVID-19 on employees, because men and women face comparable institutional contexts and any COVID-19 impact becomes visible and measurable fast through potentially decreased yearly publications. We reconstructed the complete publishing careers up till 2022 of more than 8000 Dutch scientists who received a PhD from 1990 onwards and still had an active publication career before the pandemic started. We compared the publication dip between men and women during COVID-19. Our data allowed us to investigate whether the gendered impact of COVID-19 varied across research domains, different PhD cohorts and type of research output. We consistently find that COVID-19 did not have more severe consequences on research output for women than for men.

link.springer.com

1 5 6

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

Trouw @trouw.nl · Aug 11

Het geheim van een geslaagde introductieweek? Onbezonnen lachen en niet als eerste naar bed

De introductieweken voor nieuwe studenten zijn weer begonnen. Hoe maak je vrienden in deze spannende levensfase? ‘Voor iedere hobby bestaat wel een clubje.’

www.trouw.nl

1 2

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Aug 12

Ik werd geinterviewd met een aantal vragen over hoe je duurzame en nuttige netwerken opbouwt als student in een interessant stuk van de trouw @trouw.nl in de introductieweken.

Trouw @trouw.nl · Aug 11

Het geheim van een geslaagde introductieweek? Onbezonnen lachen en niet als eerste naar bed

De introductieweken voor nieuwe studenten zijn weer begonnen. Hoe maak je vrienden in deze spannende levensfase? ‘Voor iedere hobby bestaat wel een clubje.’

www.trouw.nl

2

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Aug 1

I built the website with Quarto, R, GitHub, and host it through Netlify. Curious how it’s made? The source code is available on my GitHub repository: github.com/bhofstra/aca.... I licensed it through CC-BY 4.0, so feel free to re-use what you need.

GitHub - bhofstra/aca-web

Contribute to bhofstra/aca-web development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Aug 1

I’m excited to share the launch of my new website: bashofstra.com!

This site brings together all my work in a clear, accessible format. The new website is clean, minimal, responsive, and scalable and works seamlessly on desktop and mobile.

Bas Hofstra – bashofstra.com

bashofstra.com

1 2

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

CREST Sociology @crestsociology.bsky.social · Jul 29

Recently presented at the CREST Sociology seminar, now published in @ssreditorial.bsky.social: @mtorre.bsky.social's "The uneven effects of gender parity"

Link: doi.org/10.1016/j.ss...

1 4 11

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jul 22

📺 RTL EditieNL besteedde aandacht aan en interviewde mij over ons onderzoek naar de kennissenkring van Nederlanders. Samen met Beate Völker, Rense Corten, en Frank van Tubergen onderzochten we hoe groot deze netwerken zijn en hoe homogeen ze blijken te zijn.

Vanaf 7:32: www.rtl.nl/nieuws/uitze...

Aflevering 200

Journalistiek programma met een eigen kijk op het dagelijks nieuws.

www.rtl.nl

2

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jul 15

Met in de @volkskrant.nl tekst en uitleg bij de studie:

www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/e...

4

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jul 15

De @volkskrant.nl schreef een stuk over ons onderzoek naar sociale contacten en haar scheidslijnen! Zie hieronder:

Onderzoek met Beate Volker, @rensec.bsky.social, en Frank van Tubergen.

de Volkskrant @volkskrant.nl · Jul 15

Een Nederlander kent zo’n 568 mensen: ‘Soort zoekt soort en opleiding is een bepalende factor’

www.volkskrant.nl

2 2 5

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

de Volkskrant @volkskrant.nl · Jul 15

Een Nederlander kent zo’n 568 mensen: ‘Soort zoekt soort en opleiding is een bepalende factor’

www.volkskrant.nl

3 5

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · Jun 27

Nothing like having your Social Networks article (as seen at #Sunbelt2024) published while attending #Sunbelt2025!

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

Thrilled to share my latest publication in the journal Social Networks, together with Beate Völker (lead), @rensec.bsky.social, and Frank van Tubergen.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Who’s in your extended network? Analysing the size and homogeneity of acquaintanceship networks in the Netherlands

This study advances the understanding of the size and homogeneity of personal networks, focusing on extended networks that encompass both core discuss…

www.sciencedirect.com

2 8

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

You can find the paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

You can find the replication website to the paper here: bhofstra.github.io/netsize_dutch/

(PS: fitting that this gets out while I'm currently at the Sunbelt conference of the International Network of Social Network Analysis!)

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

lnkd.in

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

Additionally, we find a pretty strong presence for gender and educational homogeneity.

These findings have important implications for Dutch social structure as to who is at risk to become socially isolated and as to where social barriers between groups exist.

1 1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

We find fascinating patterns where average network size across a representative set respondents in the Netherlands is about 518 people. But more importantly, it decreases with age, unemployment, lower income, lower house values, lower education, and fewer people in a household.

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

This is a project that came out of our earlier popular publication at Quest where they asked us similar questions!

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

In this paper we use computational methods (for insiders, specifically the Network Scale-Up Method) to calculate both network size and its determinants, as well as network homogeneity and its determinants.

1

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 27

Thrilled to share my latest publication in the journal Social Networks, together with Beate Völker (lead), @rensec.bsky.social, and Frank van Tubergen.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Who’s in your extended network? Analysing the size and homogeneity of acquaintanceship networks in the Netherlands

This study advances the understanding of the size and homogeneity of personal networks, focusing on extended networks that encompass both core discuss…

www.sciencedirect.com

1 3 11

Bas Hofstra @bashofstra.bsky.social · Jun 26

After a pretty gruesome train ride, finally arrived in Paris for #sunbelt #sunbelt2025. Can’t wait to hear about all the amazing network studies. Shoot me a message if you want to meet or catch up!

2

Reposted by Bas Hofstra

Arnout van de Rijt @arnoutvanderijt.bsky.social · Jun 24

As some of you guessed, the two models are statistically indistinguishable. The answer is Model 1, but there was no way to tell from the data. I was very surprised when I first saw this. Here we show that this confounding of heterogeneity and reinforcement is general: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

11 11