I think we should be very careful how we choose to interpret the results here. There are a lot of unknowns and variables presented in the paper (how they&#x27;re determining gender, for example.)<p>I&#x27;m not sure there&#x27;s enough data here to create an understanding about the relationship between merge rate and gender. Various external issues could be the cause of the difference (I don&#x27;t believe either gender is more capable) - for example (not sure if this is true, but it portrays how these stats could be skewed): In India, there&#x27;s a higher incentive to be recognized in the community because competition is stiffer, so more people submit PRs. In this case, people who generally wouldn&#x27;t submit a PR because of their lack of expertise are now submitting PRs on the chance that it may get accepted. The result is a greater number of PRs with lower quality.<p>These are the effects of having a global community. There are <i>so many</i> external factors I don&#x27;t really think we can determine much of anything from these results. It&#x27;s an interesting analysis regardless though.