A new study from the University of Michigan reveals that women are about 28% less likely than men to promote their scientific papers on X (formerly Twitter)—a seemingly small digital choice that could significantly impact their career advancement, visibility, and earnings.

Even after accounting for factors like research field, institutional affiliation, and overall social media use, the study found a persistent and substantial gender gap. Surprisingly, this gap persists even in fields with greater gender parity and where explicit bias is thought to be lower, the researchers note.

Even more striking: the gap grows wider as women advance in their careers.

Those least likely to promote their work? High-achieving women from prestigious institutions publishing in leading journals—the very scholars who stand to benefit most from greater visibility.

“This isn’t just about tweets — it’s about who gets seen, cited, and celebrated in science,” said study co-author Daniel Romero, associate professor of information, complex systems, and electrical engineering and computer science.

The gender gap in self-promotion grows with increasing performance and status, peaking among highly productive women at top-ranked institutions publishing in high-impact journals.

Romero and his team analyzed scholarly self-promotion over six years, examining 23 million tweets referencing 2.8 million research papers authored by 3.5 million scientists.

The findings raise concerns about the prevailing norms of academic social media, which tend to reward traditionally masculine self-presentation styles — potentially discouraging women from participating. The researchers argue that universities, funding bodies, and hiring committees should account for the hidden costs of relying heavily on engagement metrics