  The number of citations received by papers often exhibits imbalances in terms
of author attributes such as country of affiliation and gender. While recent
studies have quantified citation imbalance in terms of the authors' gender in
journal papers, the computer science discipline, where researchers frequently
present their work at conferences, may exhibit unique patterns in gendered
citation imbalance. Additionally, understanding how network properties in
citations influence citation imbalances remains challenging due to a lack of
suitable reference models. In this paper, we develop a family of reference
models for citation networks and investigate gender imbalance in citations
between papers published in computer science conferences. By deploying these
reference models, we found that homophily in citations is strongly associated
with gendered citation imbalance in computer science, whereas heterogeneity in
the number of citations received per paper has a relatively minor association
with it. Furthermore, we found that the gendered citation imbalance is most
pronounced in papers published in the highest-ranked conferences, is present
across different subfields, and extends to citation-based rankings of papers.
Our study provides a framework for investigating associations between network
properties and citation imbalances, aiming to enhance our understanding of the
structure and dynamics of citations between research publications.
