Relative to males, females have historically been underrepresented among recognized creators, inventors, and innovators. Despite vast strides toward female empowerment and gender equality in various social, political, and employment arenas, a trend of gender imbalance in many creative endeavors has persisted into the present day. Although real-world and anecdotal evidence present a clear disparity, the actual empirical literature regarding gender and creative capabilities presents a more muddled picture about gender differences. Some studies have suggested female superiority; some suggest male superiority; some suggest gender equality; and still others suggest that either gender can excel creatively depending on various measurement and contextual factors. The purpose of the current study was 1) to systematically investigate the accumulated evidence on gender differences in creativity and 2) to explore the conceptual factors and potential moderators that may account for past discrepancies in the literature. Specifically, a meta-analysis was conducted to address the question of whether females and males tend to differ in mean level of creativity across the empirical literature and also whether a variety of moderating variables (i.e., creativity construct, domain specificity of measure, measure format, sample age, study era) affect the relationship between creativity and gender. In order to collect a pool of primary studies to address these questions, a systematic literature search was conducted, pulling for studies across the lifespan and throughout historical eras. All studies relating gender to an individual-level, quantitative measure of creative ability or achievement were eligible for inclusion, resulting in a variety of included assessment instruments (i.e., divergent thinking performance tests, evaluation of creative products, self-report inventories, other-report inventories). The literature search returned 271 eligible studies, yielding 480 independent effect sizes and a total N of 137,247 participants. Analyses showed a significant relationship between creativity and gender overall (g ̅= .056, p < .05), such that females showed slightly higher creativity than males across all studies. Creativity construct and age were found to be marginally significant in moderating the association between gender and creativity, and creativity test format was significant at p < .05 as a moderator. However, in a multiple regression combining the predictive power of these three variables, age was no longer found to be a significant moderator. Domain specificity and study era were also not found to be significant moderators. Results of the study were discussed in terms of the strengths and limitations of the design, suggestions for future research, and practical implications for both males and females in pursuing their creative passions.
