Rerun of Landmark Bias Study Finds Women Favored in Science Hiring

In a surprising reversal, a landmark 2012 study on bias against women in science has been debunked by a new study conducted in 2025. The original experiment, which asked 127 science professors to rate identical CVs with different gendered names, found that the applicant named "John" was rated as more competent, hireable, and deserving of a higher salary than the applicant called "Jennifer."

However, a team of researchers from Rutgers University in New Jersey has now replicated the study with nearly 1,300 professors from over 50 American institutions. This time, the female applicant was ranked as marginally more capable and appealing to work with, as well as the more hireable of the two. She was also deemed worthy of a higher salary.

The new findings challenge the longstanding narrative that women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields due to bias. The researchers believe this could be the reason why a leading science journal, Nature Human Behaviour, did not agree to their proposal to rerun the original experiment.

Despite the pushback, the scientists took their study elsewhere, and the results have now been accepted by the journal Meta-Psychology. This reversal of the landmark 2012 study could have significant implications for efforts to address gender imbalances in STEM fields.