In this study, the global scientific workforce is explored through a large-scale, generational, and longitudinal approach. We examine 4.3 million nonoccasional scientists from 38 OECD countries publishing in 1990-2021. Our longitudinal interest is in the changing distribution of young male and female scientists over time across 16 STEMM disciplines. We unpack the details of the changing scientific workforce using ten 5-year age groups within each discipline. The usefulness of global bibliometric data sources in analyzing the scientific workforce along the four dimensions of gender, age, discipline, and time is tested. Traditional aggregated data about scientists in general hide a nuanced picture of the changing gender dynamics within and across disciplines and age groups. For instance, the pivotal role of medicine in the global scientific workforce is highlighted, with almost half of all scientists (45.98%) in the OECD area being primarily involved in medical research, and more than half of female scientists (55.02%) being disciplinarily located in medicine. Limitations of bibliometric datasets are explored and global studies are compared with national-level studies. The methodological choices and their implications are shown, and new opportunities for how to study scientists globally are discussed.

翻译：本研究采用大规模、跨代际和纵向研究范式，对全球科研人员队伍进行了系统探索。我们分析了1990-2021年间38个OECD国家中430万名非临时性科研人员的数据。研究聚焦于16个STEMM学科领域中年轻男性和女性科研人员比例随时间的变化特征，并在每个学科内部按五个年龄段（每段5岁）对科研队伍结构变化进行解构。研究验证了全球文献计量数据源在性别、年龄、学科和时间四维分析中的适用性。传统针对科研人员的聚合数据掩盖了学科内部及跨学科间性别动态变化的复杂图景。例如，医学在全球科研队伍中占据关键地位——OECD地区近半数科研人员（45.98%）主要从事医学研究，而超过半数女性科研人员（55.02%）集中在医学领域。本文探讨了文献计量数据集存在的局限性，并将全球层面研究与国别研究进行了比较。通过阐明方法论选择及其影响，为全球科研人员研究提供了新的分析路径。