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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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See an example

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

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To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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A Guide to Literature Reviews

Importance of a good literature review.

• Conducting the Literature Review
• Structure and Writing Style
• Types of Literature Reviews
• Citation Management Software This link opens in a new window
• Acknowledgements

A literature review is not only a summary of key sources, but  has an organizational pattern which combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

The purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].
• << Previous: Definition
• Next: Conducting the Literature Review >>
• Last Updated: Jan 22, 2024 3:26 PM
• URL: https://libguides.mcmaster.ca/litreview

Libraries | Research Guides

Literature reviews, what is a literature review, learning more about how to do a literature review.

• Planning the Review
• The Research Question
• Choosing Where to Search
• Organizing the Review
• Writing the Review

A literature review is a review and synthesis of existing research on a topic or research question. A literature review is meant to analyze the scholarly literature, make connections across writings and identify strengths, weaknesses, trends, and missing conversations. A literature review should address different aspects of a topic as it relates to your research question. A literature review goes beyond a description or summary of the literature you have read. 

• Sage Research Methods Core Collection This link opens in a new window SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. SAGE Research Methods is the ultimate methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher. – Publisher

• Next: Planning the Review >>
• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2024 10:05 AM
• URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/literaturereviews

• University of Texas Libraries

Literature Reviews

• What is a literature review?
• Steps in the Literature Review Process
• Define your research question
• Determine inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Choose databases and search
• Review Results
• Synthesize Results
• Analyze Results
• Librarian Support

What is a Literature Review?

A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field. 

A literature review should: 

• Provide a comprehensive and updated review of the literature;
• Explain why this review has taken place;
• Articulate a position or hypothesis;
• Acknowledge and account for conflicting and corroborating points of view

From  S age Research Methods

Purpose of a Literature Review

A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:

• Demonstrate how a study fills a gap in research
• Compare a study with other research that's been done

Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:

• Organizes or describes a topic
• Describes variables within a particular issue/problem

Limitations of a Literature Review

Some of the limitations of a literature review are:

• It's a snapshot in time. Unlike other reviews, this one has beginning, a middle and an end. There may be future developments that could make your work less relevant.
• It may be too focused. Some niche studies may miss the bigger picture.
• It can be difficult to be comprehensive. There is no way to make sure all the literature on a topic was considered.
• It is easy to be biased if you stick to top tier journals. There may be other places where people are publishing exemplary research. Look to open access publications and conferences to reflect a more inclusive collection. Also, make sure to include opposing views (and not just supporting evidence).

Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.

Meryl Brodsky : Communication and Information Studies

Hannah Chapman Tripp : Biology, Neuroscience

Carolyn Cunningham : Human Development & Family Sciences, Psychology, Sociology

Larayne Dallas : Engineering

Janelle Hedstrom : Special Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Ed Leadership & Policy ​

Susan Macicak : Linguistics

Imelda Vetter : Dell Medical School

For help in other subject areas, please see the guide to library specialists by subject .

Periodically, UT Libraries runs a workshop covering the basics and library support for literature reviews. While we try to offer these once per academic year, we find providing the recording to be helpful to community members who have missed the session. Following is the most recent recording of the workshop, Conducting a Literature Review. To view the recording, a UT login is required.

• October 26, 2022 recording
• Last Updated: Oct 26, 2022 2:49 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/literaturereviews

3 Literature Review

Charitianne Williams

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

• Understand the purpose and function of a literature review.
• Structure a literature review according to basic genre expectations.
• Synthesize ideas from multiple sources using a synthesis matrix.
• Choose between narrative or parenthetical citation and direct quoting, or paraphrase with intent and purpose.

I. Introduction

The purpose of a literature review is just that—it reviews. This means that literature reviews examine a text after it was produced, with all the benefits that hindsight allows a reader. In popular culture, we commonly review movies, restaurants, vacation spots, products, etc. In those reviews, you look back at the single thing you are reviewing and your experience with it. You focus on the strengths and weaknesses of your experience and judge the experience as positive or negative while recommending or not recommending the place or product and explaining why.

An academic literature review does something different, although some of the skills and strategies you use remain the same. The job of a literature review is to examine a collection of research or scholarship (not a single thing or text) on a given topic and show how that scholarship fits together. Literature reviews summarize, describe, evaluate, and synthesize the work of other authors and researchers while looking for common trends/patterns, themes, inconsistencies, and gaps in this previous research. The main strategy writers of a literature review use is synthesis.

SYNTHESIS: the combination of ideas and elements to form a complete system or theory.

A good metaphor for synthesis is cooking! Imagine the ingredients for a loaf of bread laid out on a kitchen cabinet. Each ingredient—eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, yeast—have their own purpose and can be combined in different ways to form food other than bread. Knowing all of those individual attributes that make an egg an egg, or the difference between yeast and flour, is what makes you a chef. When you combine all these ingredients according to the recipe, you get something different than all the ingredients on their own: and most of us would rather eat a slice of bread than a spoonful of flour. The product of synthesis is like bread. Synthesis takes a list of ingredients and makes them into something more than the ingredients alone.

Usually, the writers of a literature review will start with a question that they want to answer through informed and research-based evidence gathered while reading others’ work on related topics. The “thesis” or controlling idea of a literature review may be that same question ( “This review seeks to answer…” ) or it may be a statement describing the reviewed research. The thesis reflects the purpose of the literature review as a genre and is different from the thesis you will write for the research paper that argues a claim or asserts a new idea.

Example 3.1: Look at this thesis statement taken from the introduction of a literature review in environmental psychology on the relationship between “nature sounds” and restorative environments:

From this example, we can learn many things about literature reviews:

• They are explicit and focused on their topic. The opening states an observable truth about the current research ( emphasizes nature ), is followed by a general condition ( positive psychological experiences) within that research, and then finally focuses on describing how a particular outcome is achieved (listening to nature sounds is restorative).
• They seek to pre vent or eliminate misunderstanding. Note the use of specialized key terms, exacting transitional phrases, and meaningful verbs in the thesis such as “ restorative environments,” “in particular,” and “ generate .”
• They seek to forward understanding. In other words, literature reviews examine and link together evidence described and validated in the research of others so a reader can learn how a field is developing. ( Research seems to agree that nature sounds can relieve stress and fatigue–this review will examine that conclusion so readers can understand/ build on how and why.)

Moving from the beginning to the very end of the literature review, we can also learn many things about literature reviews from the sources used. Think of each text listed in the References section of a literature review as contributing pieces to a gigantic puzzle.

Example 3.2: Look at the first three articles listed in the References for the article excerpted above:

Abbott, L. C., Taff, D., Newman, P., Benfield, J. A., and Mowen, A. J. (2016). The influence of natural sounds on attention restoration. J. Park Recreation Adm. 34, 5–15. doi: 10.18666/JPRA-2016-V34-I3-6893

Aletta, F., and Kang, J. (2019). Promoting healthy and supportive acoustic environments: going beyond the quietness. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 16:4988. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16244988

Aletta, F., Oberman, T., and Kang, J. (2018). Associations between positive health-related effects and soundscapes perceptual constructs: a systematic review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 15:2392. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15112392

None of these sources are exactly the same. One focuses on sound and attention, the next two on sound and health, and none of them are quite the same as sound and restoration —but they are all pieces of the puzzle that give a full understanding of how sound and restorative environments relate.

As the author of the literature review, it is your job to join the pieces together, giving your reader a complete picture of what researchers know about your topic.

Literature reviews are an indispensable tool for researchers. Instead of having to read dozens of articles on a topic, a researcher could instead read a literature review that synthesizes what is known and puts each piece of scholarship into conversation with the others. This could be not only quicker, but also more valuable.

Have you heard the saying that the whole is more than the sum of its parts? The knowledge constructed by a well-written literature review often outweighs the knowledge constructed by simply reading each article in the References section on its own because the author of a literature review processes and analyzes the information for the reader.

Literature reviews occur in two general forms—as a background section in a scholarly work or as a stand-alone genre in and of itself. In both situations, the basic purpose and structure of the literature review is similar: it is the length and the scope that varies. For example, consider the previous chapter, the Proposal. In most proposals, you will want to convince your audience that you are informed on the background of your topic—a literature review is how you would do that. Since a proposal is commonly a short text, you do not have the space to summarize every piece of research. You must select an important set and synthesize that information into a small section signaling your expertise.

On the other hand, consider a professional journal intended to keep its readers up to date on new technologies and findings in a specific field or career. New ideas and discoveries are emerging every day, and it can be difficult to stay on top of all of these new findings, understand how they fit together, and also keep track of your own career responsibilities! A magazine might hire an author to read all the new research on a specific topic and synthesize it into a single article, a state-of-the-art review, so that practitioners in a field can read a single 25-page article instead of 100 25-page articles.

More Resources 3.1: Literature Reviews

II. Rhetorical Considerations: Voice

Using the scholarship of other writers and researchers is one of the things that differentiates academic writing from other types of writing. Using others’ scholarship in a meaningful way that creates new knowledge without mischaracterizing the original findings takes effort, attention, and usually several rounds of revision and rewriting. One of the issues is voice , which refers to the attitude and tone of a text—think of it as what the text “sounds like” in your head as you read it. Voice is an important element of cohesion , or what some people think of as “flow.” Creating a consistent voice in the mind of your reader helps them fit all the information in a text together in the way the author intends. Check out this advice from APAstyle.org about academic style and voice.

Think back to your annotated bibliography and how you created your summaries. You probably used key terms from the original authors’ texts, but because you had to take whole articles and restate the meaning in a short paragraph, there wasn’t room to just repeat the words of the original author. So you had to write the summaries in your voice . If you used those key terms correctly and in ways similar to original authors, those key terms probably did not interfere with cohesiveness and voice. However, in the literature review, you have many more voices to synthesize than you did to summarize in the annotated bibliography. Maintaining a consistent and cohesive voice will be challenging. An important way to maintain voice is through paraphrasing, discussed later in this chapter.

More Resources 3.2: Transitions

Another important way to maintain cohesion is through the use of metadiscourse (see Chapter 2) and transitional phrases. See this link for the use and meaning of transitional phrases, sometimes called signposts .

III. The Literature Review Across the Disciplines

Example 3.3: Academic and Professional Examples

Structure of Literature Reviews

While the details vary across disciplines, all literature reviews tend to have similar basic structure. The introduction of a literature review informs the reader on the topic by defining key terms, citing key researchers or research periods in the field, and introducing the main focus of the review in a descriptive thesis statement. The introduction also explains the organization of the review. In a literature review, you organize your discussion of the research by topic or theme— not article or author. This is in direct contrast to the annotated bibliography, which is often the first step in the writing process for a literature review.

In the annotated bibliography, you organize your entries in alphabetical order by authors’ last names. Each annotation is directly connected to a single text. A literature review is connected to a collection of texts, and therefore must be organized in a way that reflects this.

Example 3.4: Let’s examine the full paragraph that the thesis statement we analyzed earlier came from:

A systematic review by Aletta et al. (2018) has identified links between positive urban soundscapes (which may also include nature sounds) and health and well-being, including stress recovery. Given the emphasis on nature w ithin restorative environments (see Hartig et al., 2014 ), the present narrative literature review focuses on evidence for positive psychological experiences of nature sounds and soundscapes specifically, and in particular how listening to these can generate perceptions and outcomes of restoration from stress and fatigue. This review has five key objectives, summarized in Figure 1 [in the article] . First, it explores literature regarding the impact of nature sounds on perceptions and experiences of wider natural environments. Second, it examines evidence regarding cognitive and affective appraisals of nature sounds and their contributions to overall perceptions of restorative environments. Third, literature regarding restorative outcomes in response to nature sounds is assessed. Fourth, the relevance of key restoration theories to this top ic is examined and areas where these theories are limited are identified. Fifth, a possible new theoretical area of interest—semantic associations with nature—is discussed and exemplified by recent acoustics research (Ratcliffe, 2021, emphasis added).

Notice how the thesis statement (in bold ) is followed by an explicit description of the five key objectives—which correspond to the titles (usually called headings ) of the five major sections of the body of the literature review. The introduction basically outlines the body of the literature review to make it easier for a researcher to find the specific information they are looking for. What follows each of these headings is an analysis and synthesis of the topic described in the heading—which is what we mean when we say a literature review is organized by topic.

Example 3.5: See how the body sections of a literature review synthesize research and evidence in relation to a focused topic. Read this example taken from a literature review in another discipline, nursing.

The introduction states that the review’s purpose is to understand the issues facing nurses in situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found several themes in the research that all contributed to nurses’ experiences. This paragraph describes one of those themes which the authors label “Professional collegiality”:

3.2.2. Professional collegiality

Professional camaraderie amongst nursing colleagues working during a pandemic was high (Ives et al., 2009, Kim, 2018, Liu a nd Liehr , 2009). Nurses acknowledged the importance of caring for their co-workers and in sharing the load. Some nurses associated the experience with working on a battlefield, whereby they worked together as a team protecting one another (Chung et al., 20 05, Kang et al., 2018, Liu and Liehr , 2009). Appreciation of their nursing colleagues was demonstrated through sharing their experiences, willingness to work together and encouraging a team spirit (Shih et al., 2007, Chung et al., 2005, Chiang et al., 2007 ). (Ratcliffe, 2021, p.4)

In this single paragraph, there are seven different research articles cited, and some of them are cited twice. There is no way to write a coherent paragraph summarizing seven different research articles at once—instead, the authors of this paragraph reviewed what the researchers said about collegiality, found where their findings pointed in the same direction, and put those connections into their own words. This is the importance of the review’s body section: it is here where you really dig into the content, meaning, and implications of the scholarship you are discussing.

The end of a literature review looks different from the one- or two-paragraph conclusion we are used to in other texts. The end is often made up of multiple sections, each with a slightly different purpose, although all are probably recognizable to you. A “Discussion” section is almost always present, where the author summarizes the most important findings of each section. In most cases, the “Discussion” section does not contain new information, but ties the different body sections together in ways that provide a deeper analysis.

The end of a literature review may also contain an “Implications for Future Research” or “Resolution” after the Discussion—sometimes this final section is even called “Conclusion.” What this last section looks like is often dependent upon the type of review you are writing, and whether the review is standing alone as a complete text or part of a larger project.

In any situation, across all disciplines, it is important to understand how your literature review is meant to inform the reader and what kind of review is appropriate for the context, in order to decide how you should structure the beginning and end of your review.

Types of Literature Reviews

There are different types of literature reviews, although in undergraduate study the Traditional or Narrative Review is most common. Narrative reviews are somewhat exploratory in their content—in a narrative review you are synthesizing the results of specific texts selected for their connection to your topic. Narrative reviews almost always end with a section describing areas for future research if they are a stand-alone text, or a section describing why the author’s research is so needed if part of a larger research article. The chart below outlines the key differences between three major literature review types. Notice that each type has a slightly different purpose. You might think about which type best fits your project as you read.

Table 3.1: Types of Literature Reviews

More Resources 3.3: Literature Review Structures

IV. Research Strategies: Developing a Methodology

Systematic and scoping reviews should always contain a Research Methodology that explains to your reader exactly how you found the research you are reviewing. Often Narrative Reviews will also contain a research methodology, although it will be slightly different since they are not comprehensive reviews, meaning, they do not attempt to find all the research on a topic—by design, they cover only a specific portion. Even if you are not required to write up your methodology, you need clear research strategies to find the appropriate scholarship for your literature review.

Example 3.6: Check out this excerpt from the methods sections from a psychology literature review. Note how the authors clearly describe what types of sources they’ll be using as well as their steps throughout the research process.

Drawing on individual case studies, archival reports, correlational studies, and laboratory and field experiments, this monograph scrutinizes a sequence of events during which confessions may be obtained from criminal suspects and used as evidence. First, we examine the pre-interrogation interview, a process by which police …( Kassin and Gudjonsson , 2004, p.33)

Example 3.7: Here is another example from the field of education. In it the authors describe two separate searches they performed to gather the literature—the first search used key terms they decided upon before reading any scholarship, and the second search used the terms that they found were common to that first set of texts (see more about key terms here and in the Annotated Bibliography chapter).

We conducted two rounds of literature searches, utilizing the following databases: World CAT (general search), EB SCO Academic Search Complete, EBSCO Education Source, and Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (ProQuest). In the first round, we searched using every possible combination of the following terms: ‘race,’ ‘language teaching,’ ‘ethnicity,’ ‘language p edagogy,’ ‘Whiteness,’ ‘racialized,’ ‘antiracism,’ and ‘ nativeness .’ For the second round of our literature search, we searched using terms that we saw emerging from the literature such as ‘racial identities of language learners,’ ‘racial identities of lan guage teachers,’ ‘language varieties and language teaching,’ ‘race and language teacher education,’ ‘race and educational policy,’ ‘race and language programs,’ and ‘race and language curriculum’ and also repeated our earlier searches in order to keep the literature updated. (Von Esch et al., 2020, p. 392)

No matter the type of research (see a description of qualitative vs. quantitative research ), the specific genres (see descriptions of academic research genres ), or the time frame (see a discussion on the importance of publication date ) you use for your review, it is important to think through the options, make a decision, and incorporate all your research knowledge—use of key terms, use of subject filters, use of specialized databases, etc.—into a coherent and meaningful process that results in the best scholarship for your inquiry and review.

Here’s a video to help you get started on using databases for research:

Library Referral: Connecting the Conversation with Scholarly Sources and Beyond​

(by Annie R. Armstrong)

Research involves drawing from numerous voices from a range of source types. The sources you choose to include in your conversation are context-specific and might vary depending on your topic or the parameters of your assignment. Review your assignment description and talk to your instructor about guidelines. While most research papers emphasize scholarly sources, expertise isn’t always equated with scholarliness and you might want to branch out. For example, a research paper focusing on exploitation of Native American land and communities by the mining industry should make some attempt to include sources generated by the communities under discussion, especially if their point of view is not represented in the peer-reviewed, scholarly sources you’ve found. Think about who the stakeholders are as related to various aspects of your topic and how you can tap into their voices through available resources. You may want to consult a librarian about this.

The chart below summarizes the breadth of source types available through library websites versus the open web:

Table 3.2: Scholarly Sources and Beyond

V. Reading Strategies: Intertextuality and Graphic Organizers

Typically we think of reading as something we do to learn the content of a text—and this is absolutely true! But true understanding means knowing the relationships between and impact of separate but related topics, which might mean understanding how different texts—generally focused on one topic—overlap or differ.

Intertextuality refers to the connections that exist between texts. Intertextuality as a reading strategy means looking for the connections between the text you are reading and others you have already read; anticipating connections with other texts that you have not yet read, but plan to; as well as connections to whole disciplines, fields, and social phenomena. Reading for intertextuality means looking for opportunities to connect texts with each other, and keeping track of those connections in a productive way.

This means note-taking is essential to intertextual reading. Once you have thought carefully about why you are reading a text, what types of information to look for, and what you will do with that information, you can better decide how to keep track of that information. In regards to literature reviews, one type of graphic organizer dominates: the Synthesis Matrix.

The synthesis matrix is a way to keep track of the themes, concepts, and patterns that are emerging from your reading—NOT all the individual content of each article. This is important, yes, and you will need the citations, but literature reviews move one step further into the topic than simply identifying the pieces. You will need to synthesize.

If you have an annotated bibliography of sources already, it is the perfect way to start your synthesis matrix. An annotated bibliography is often the first step in preparing for a literature review, and is quite similar to an ingredient list, if we are using the metaphor from the introduction. (For a detailed description of how to write an annotated bibliography, see Chapter 1 ).

In your annotations, you will have selected the most important information that text supplies in relation to your topic. For an example, let’s take the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s statement “ Students’ Right to Their Own Language ,” which contains two annotated bibliographies. The second uses more recent sources and looks most like the annotated bibliographies you will write as a student, so let’s start there.

Example 3.8: Here are three annotations from that bibliography. As you read, take notice of the different highlighted colors. Phrases italicized and highlighted green identify ideas related to linguistic identity , phrases bolded and highlighted in blue identify concepts related to grammar analysis , and phrases underlined and highlighted orange identify groups and ideas related to educational objectives :

Fought, Carmen. Chicano English in Context. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Based primarily on data collected from adolescent and young adult native speakers in Los Angeles , this book is a comprehensive sociolinguistic study of language and language change in Latino/a communities. It provides the basics of Chicano English (CE) structure (phonology, syntax, and semantics) and its connection to the social and cultural identity of its speakers, along with detailed analyses of particular sociolinguistic variables. Emphasis is given to the historical, social, and linguistic contexts of CE. In addition, the differences between native and non-native CE speakers are covered. A final chapter discusses the future of research on CE.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States . London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

The author examines linguistic facts about the structure and function of language , explores commonly held myths about language, and develops a model of “the language subordination process.” Then, using a case-study approach, she applies the model to specific institutional practices (e.g., in education, news media, business) to show how false assumptions about language lead to language subordination. The author analyzes specific groups and individuals (speakers of African American English, Southern U.S. English, and the foreign-language accent of Latinos and Asian Americans) and discusses why and how some embrace linguistic assimilation while others resist it.

Nero, Shondel J. Englishes in Contact: Anglophone Caribbean Students in an Urban College. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2001.

This qualitative study of four anglophone Caribbean students at a New York City college offers an in-depth examination of the students’ written and spoken language and the challenges faced by both students and teachers as such students acquire academic literacy. Case studies of the four participants include excerpts from tape-recorded interviews, which reflect their linguistic self-perception, and sociolinguistic and educational experiences in their home countries and in New York City. Samples of their college writing over four semesters are represented and analyzed on morphosyntactic and discourse levels to determine the patterns that emerge when Creole English speakers attempt to write Standard Written English. Related issues such as language and identity , language attitudes, and educational responses to ethnolinguistic diversity are also discussed.

Once you have identified a concept like “language and identity” for your literature review, you can start getting “intertextual”! Review your other annotated sources and your new sources for their discussion of language and identity, as well as parallel concepts—what else do researchers address when they discuss language and identity? What do they discuss instead? Go back to the methods you used to come up with key terms for your literature search—the same strategies now apply to your reading. Also look for “umbrella” concepts, patterns in methodologies—anything that emerges while you read intertextually, focusing on the text in front of you while also remembering all the others you read before. Look for the themes in your annotated bibliography and keep track of the page numbers where these themes appear—plan to go back to those pages several times as you write your literature review.

This is a different type of reading than you did for the annotated bibliography, and might mean you go back and reread your sources several times in this new way—don’t think of this as just repeating labor you have already performed. This is new work, designed to uncover new things in the research. Re-reading articles multiple times is something all serious writers do, and something you should do, too. It isn’t redundant, it is recur sive .

Table 3.3: Synthesis Matrix for Individuals’ Choices in Linguistic Identity

Put your sources into conversations around your themes, as shown in the table above. Notice that the top row names the themes covered in that column, put into original wording similar, but not identical, to the wording in the annotated bibliographies. Not every source will address every topic—not every article is the same. The last row starts to describe what is happening in each column across the whole collection of texts. In this way, your synthesis matrix takes the ingredient list provided by the annotated bibliography and makes it into a recipe for your final product—the literature review.

More Resources 3.4: Synthesis Matrix

VI. Writing Strategies: Citation, Quotation, and Paraphrase

Citation is when you use the work of other authors in your writing and mark that portion of your writing so your reader understands what idea is being “borrowed.” Citation also tells your reader where they could find that original idea in the original text, and how your text fits together with the web of other texts related to your topic: in other words, citations help create intertextuality. A citation placed in your sentences should refer directly to the full bibliographic information in your Works Cited or References page.

As you read in Chapter 1, there are different styles of citation including AMA, APA, CMS, and MLA. You can refer back to that chapter for a more detailed explanation of each. In this section, we’ll cover the basics that are common to citation practices. Most academic styles use the original author’s last name as the central part of the in-text citation, since References pages usually list cited works alphabetically by last name, but some use footnotes or endnotes instead, listing works in the order they were cited. It is important to know which academic style you are using for your literature review so that you can make the right choice.

In-text citation takes one of two forms: parenthetical or narrative. In a narrative citation the author of the original work is mentioned in the sentence.

Example 3.9: Here’s an example taken from the introduction of the same literature review discussed in the Research Strategies: Developing a Methodology section of this chapter.

Several pieces offered a comprehensive review of the historical literature on the formation of Black English as a construct in the context of slavery and Jim Crow, and the historical teaching of Black English within the U .S. context, including Wheeler ( 2016 ) and Alim and Baugh (2007). Wheeler (2016) equated Standard English with ‘White’ English and challenged its hegemony in dialectically diverse classrooms. She named the “racism inherent in [fostering] bidialectalism [th rough teaching]” (p. 380), arguing that we are acknowledging that the only way for African-Americans to be upwardly mobile was to learn how to speak ‘White’ English. Alim (2010) , explained, “By uncritically presenting language varieties as ‘equal’ but diff ering in levels of ‘appropriateness,’ language and Dialect Awareness programs run the risk of silently legitimizing ‘Standard English’” (p. 215)…. Current work addressing AAVE studies has been shifting focus to translingualism and to promoting such pedag ogies as code-meshing (Young, Barrett, Young Rivera and Lovejoy, 2014) and translanguaging (García & Wei, García and Wei, 2014) , embedded in a critical analysis of the racial logics underpinning the denigration of some languages. This work, combined with e xtensive examinations of the connections between race, language, teaching, and identity ( e.g. Flores & Rosa, 2015; Alim et al., 2016 ), has laid a foundation for a raciolinguistics approach to teaching, which we return to later in this article. (Von Esch et al., 2020, p. 399, emphasis added .)

In the first sentence, we see two narrative citations just before the period. These citations state the authors’ names as a part of the sentence, and put the publication date of the articles in parenthesis. It makes sense to use a narrative citation in the topic sentence, since most of the paragraph is a synthesis of Wheeler and Alim’s research. The second sentence starts with Wheeler’s name in the subject position, and the fourth sentence starts with Alim’s name in the subject position—both are narrative citations, a form chosen by the author to emphasize the importance and similarities in the two articles.

In the last two sentences, we see parenthetical citations. The citation information is in parenthesis within the sentences, which focuses the reader on the ideas, not the research itself. Imagine you were reading this article out loud—you would most certainly say the narrative citations “Wheeler” and “Alim”; you might choose not to say “Young, Barrett, Young-Rivera, & Lovejoy, 2014,” though, and no one listening to you would notice the omission. This is the most important difference between narrative and parenthetical citation—narrative draws attention to the researchers, while parenthetical allows a focus on ideas. In academic writing, you often have reason to use both, but it is important to note that using parenthetical citation is less disruptive to your voice—it keeps a reader focused on the ideas you are explaining.

Usually you are citing a type of quotation in your text (although different disciplines have other situations that they cite). Direct quotation and paraphrase are usually what we talk about when we talk about using resources in your writing, although summary is cited as well.

Direct quotation is when you take the original words of one author and place them in your own text. When you quote in your own writing, you mark the copied text—usually with quotation marks “” around the text and a citation afterwards. Quoting is useful when the original author is an important authority on a topic or if you want to define/describe another’s point of view in a way that leaves no room for misinterpretation.

In a literature review, a direct quote will almost always be accompanied by a narrative citation. But direct quoting can cause some issues in your own text, such as a sudden shift in voice and a loss of cohesion; the potential for misunderstanding and misrepresentation, since the quote has been separated from its original context; and wordiness —quotes can take up too much space both in terms of the quote itself, and of the explanation and context you must provide for the introduced idea. For these reasons, literature reviews do not contain much direct quoting.

Paraphrasing is a way to accomplish similar goals to direct quoting without causing the same problems. Paraphrasing is when you use only the original author’s key terms and ideas, but your own words. Paraphrasing still contains a citation afterwards that directs the reader to the full bibliographic information in your Works Cited, but does not require quotation marks since the language is yours. Paraphrase may be longer or shorter than the original author’s text, and uses both narrative and parenthetical citation. Paraphrase also allows you to cite more than one piece of research containing the same idea in a single sentence, such as the last sentence in the example paragraph above. This kind of citation string is important to literature reviews because it clearly identifies patterns and trends in research findings.

Key Takeaways

• Literature reviews are a synthesis of what other researchers have discovered on your topic. Think of reviews as “the big picture.”
• Taking so much information from other sources can get confusing–use section headings to keep your review organized and clear.
• Diverse citation, quotation, and paraphrasing techniques are necessary to help your reader understand where the ideas are coming from, AND to help make the ideas “stick together.”
• Keeping all the new knowledge you are learning from your sources organized is hard! Take notes using citations and use a graphic organizer to keep yourself on track.

Fernandez, Lord, H., Halcomb, E., Moxham, L., Middleton, R., Alananzeh, I., & Ellwood, L. (2020). Implications for COVID-19: A systematic review of nurses’ experiences of working in acute care hospital settings during a respiratory pandemic. International Journal of Nursing Studies , 111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103637

Kassin, S. M., & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2004). The psychology of confessions. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 5 (2), 33–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2004.00016.x

National Council of Teachers of English. (2018, June 16). Students’ right to their own language (with bibliography) . Conference on College Composition and Communication. Retrieved July 24, 2022, from https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/srtolsummary

NEIU Libraries. (2020). “How should I search in a database?”  YouTube . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fgBF0EuH_o

Ratcliffe, E. (2021). Summary Flowchart [Image]. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.570563/full#B3

Ratcliffe, E. (2021). Sound and soundscape in restorative natural environments: A narrative literature review. Frontiers in Psychology , 12 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.570563

Sasaki. K. (2022). Synthesis and Recipes [Image].

Von Esch, K., Motha, S., & Kubota, R. (2020). Race and language teaching. Language Teaching, 53 (4), 391-421. doi:10.1017/S0261444820000269

Writing for Inquiry and Research Copyright © 2023 by Charitianne Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide
• Introduction

Literature Review: The What, Why and How-to Guide — Introduction

• Getting Started
• How to Pick a Topic
• Strategies to Find Sources
• Evaluating Sources & Lit. Reviews
• Tips for Writing Literature Reviews
• Writing Literature Review: Useful Sites
• Citation Resources
• Other Academic Writings

What are Literature Reviews?

So, what is a literature review? "A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of summaries." Taylor, D.  The literature review: A few tips on conducting it . University of Toronto Health Sciences Writing Centre.

Goals of Literature Reviews

What are the goals of creating a Literature Review?  A literature could be written to accomplish different aims:

• To develop a theory or evaluate an existing theory
• To summarize the historical or existing state of a research topic
• Identify a problem in a field of research 

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1997). Writing narrative literature reviews .  Review of General Psychology , 1 (3), 311-320.

What kinds of sources require a Literature Review?

• A research paper assigned in a course
• A thesis or dissertation
• A grant proposal
• An article intended for publication in a journal

All these instances require you to collect what has been written about your research topic so that you can demonstrate how your own research sheds new light on the topic.

Types of Literature Reviews

What kinds of literature reviews are written?

Narrative review: The purpose of this type of review is to describe the current state of the research on a specific topic/research and to offer a critical analysis of the literature reviewed. Studies are grouped by research/theoretical categories, and themes and trends, strengths and weakness, and gaps are identified. The review ends with a conclusion section which summarizes the findings regarding the state of the research of the specific study, the gaps identify and if applicable, explains how the author's research will address gaps identify in the review and expand the knowledge on the topic reviewed.

• Example : Predictors and Outcomes of U.S. Quality Maternity Leave: A Review and Conceptual Framework:  10.1177/08948453211037398  

Systematic review : "The authors of a systematic review use a specific procedure to search the research literature, select the studies to include in their review, and critically evaluate the studies they find." (p. 139). Nelson, L. K. (2013). Research in Communication Sciences and Disorders . Plural Publishing.

• Example : The effect of leave policies on increasing fertility: a systematic review:  10.1057/s41599-022-01270-w

Meta-analysis : "Meta-analysis is a method of reviewing research findings in a quantitative fashion by transforming the data from individual studies into what is called an effect size and then pooling and analyzing this information. The basic goal in meta-analysis is to explain why different outcomes have occurred in different studies." (p. 197). Roberts, M. C., & Ilardi, S. S. (2003). Handbook of Research Methods in Clinical Psychology . Blackwell Publishing.

• Example : Employment Instability and Fertility in Europe: A Meta-Analysis:  10.1215/00703370-9164737

Meta-synthesis : "Qualitative meta-synthesis is a type of qualitative study that uses as data the findings from other qualitative studies linked by the same or related topic." (p.312). Zimmer, L. (2006). Qualitative meta-synthesis: A question of dialoguing with texts .  Journal of Advanced Nursing , 53 (3), 311-318.

• Example : Women’s perspectives on career successes and barriers: A qualitative meta-synthesis:  10.1177/05390184221113735

Literature Reviews in the Health Sciences

• UConn Health subject guide on systematic reviews Explanation of the different review types used in health sciences literature as well as tools to help you find the right review type
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Literature Review in Research Writing

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Table of Contents

Research on research? If you find this idea rather peculiar, know that nowadays, with the huge amount of information produced daily all around the world, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep up to date with all of it. In addition to the sheer amount of research, there is also its origin. We are witnessing the economic and intellectual emergence of countries like China, Brazil, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates, for example, that are producing scholarly literature in their own languages. So, apart from the effort of gathering information, there must also be translators prepared to unify all of it in a single language to be the object of the literature survey. At Elsevier, our team of translators is ready to support researchers by delivering high-quality scientific translations , in several languages, to serve their research – no matter the topic.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is a study – or, more accurately, a survey – involving scholarly material, with the aim to discuss published information about a specific topic or research question. Therefore, to write a literature review, it is compulsory that you are a real expert in the object of study. The results and findings will be published and made available to the public, namely scientists working in the same area of research.

How to Write a Literature Review

First of all, don’t forget that writing a literature review is a great responsibility. It’s a document that is expected to be highly reliable, especially concerning its sources and findings. You have to feel intellectually comfortable in the area of study and highly proficient in the target language; misconceptions and errors do not have a place in a document as important as a literature review. In fact, you might want to consider text editing services, like those offered at Elsevier, to make sure your literature is following the highest standards of text quality. You want to make sure your literature review is memorable by its novelty and quality rather than language errors.

Writing a literature review requires expertise but also organization. We cannot teach you about your topic of research, but we can provide a few steps to guide you through conducting a literature review:

• Choose your topic or research question: It should not be too comprehensive or too limited. You have to complete your task within a feasible time frame.
• Set the scope: Define boundaries concerning the number of sources, time frame to be covered, geographical area, etc.
• Decide which databases you will use for your searches: In order to search the best viable sources for your literature review, use highly regarded, comprehensive databases to get a big picture of the literature related to your topic.
• Search, search, and search: Now you’ll start to investigate the research on your topic. It’s critical that you keep track of all the sources. Start by looking at research abstracts in detail to see if their respective studies relate to or are useful for your own work. Next, search for bibliographies and references that can help you broaden your list of resources. Choose the most relevant literature and remember to keep notes of their bibliographic references to be used later on.
• Review all the literature, appraising carefully it’s content: After reading the study’s abstract, pay attention to the rest of the content of the articles you deem the “most relevant.” Identify methodologies, the most important questions they address, if they are well-designed and executed, and if they are cited enough, etc.

If it’s the first time you’ve published a literature review, note that it is important to follow a special structure. Just like in a thesis, for example, it is expected that you have an introduction – giving the general idea of the central topic and organizational pattern – a body – which contains the actual discussion of the sources – and finally the conclusion or recommendations – where you bring forward whatever you have drawn from the reviewed literature. The conclusion may even suggest there are no agreeable findings and that the discussion should be continued.

Why are literature reviews important?

Literature reviews constantly feed new research, that constantly feeds literature reviews…and we could go on and on. The fact is, one acts like a force over the other and this is what makes science, as a global discipline, constantly develop and evolve. As a scientist, writing a literature review can be very beneficial to your career, and set you apart from the expert elite in your field of interest. But it also can be an overwhelming task, so don’t hesitate in contacting Elsevier for text editing services, either for profound edition or just a last revision. We guarantee the very highest standards. You can also save time by letting us suggest and make the necessary amendments to your manuscript, so that it fits the structural pattern of a literature review. Who knows how many worldwide researchers you will impact with your next perfectly written literature review.

Know more: How to Find a Gap in Research .

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

What is a Research Gap

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A literature review surveys prior research published in books, scholarly articles, and any other sources relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, and by so doing, provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of these works in relation to the research problem being investigated. Literature reviews are designed to provide an overview of sources you have used in researching a particular topic and to demonstrate to your readers how your research fits within existing scholarship about the topic.

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2014.

Importance of a Good Literature Review

A literature review may consist of simply a summary of key sources, but in the social sciences, a literature review usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis, often within specific conceptual categories . A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information in a way that informs how you are planning to investigate a research problem. The analytical features of a literature review might:

• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant research, or
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched to date.

Given this, the purpose of a literature review is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to understanding the research problem being studied.
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research.
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies.
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important].

Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2011; Knopf, Jeffrey W. "Doing a Literature Review." PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (January 2006): 127-132; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012.

Types of Literature Reviews

It is important to think of knowledge in a given field as consisting of three layers. First, there are the primary studies that researchers conduct and publish. Second are the reviews of those studies that summarize and offer new interpretations built from and often extending beyond the primary studies. Third, there are the perceptions, conclusions, opinion, and interpretations that are shared informally among scholars that become part of the body of epistemological traditions within the field.

In composing a literature review, it is important to note that it is often this third layer of knowledge that is cited as "true" even though it often has only a loose relationship to the primary studies and secondary literature reviews. Given this, while literature reviews are designed to provide an overview and synthesis of pertinent sources you have explored, there are a number of approaches you could adopt depending upon the type of analysis underpinning your study.

Argumentative Review This form examines literature selectively in order to support or refute an argument, deeply embedded assumption, or philosophical problem already established in the literature. The purpose is to develop a body of literature that establishes a contrarian viewpoint. Given the value-laden nature of some social science research [e.g., educational reform; immigration control], argumentative approaches to analyzing the literature can be a legitimate and important form of discourse. However, note that they can also introduce problems of bias when they are used to make summary claims of the sort found in systematic reviews [see below].

Integrative Review Considered a form of research that reviews, critiques, and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in an integrated way such that new frameworks and perspectives on the topic are generated. The body of literature includes all studies that address related or identical hypotheses or research problems. A well-done integrative review meets the same standards as primary research in regard to clarity, rigor, and replication. This is the most common form of review in the social sciences.

Historical Review Few things rest in isolation from historical precedent. Historical literature reviews focus on examining research throughout a period of time, often starting with the first time an issue, concept, theory, phenomena emerged in the literature, then tracing its evolution within the scholarship of a discipline. The purpose is to place research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments and to identify the likely directions for future research.

Methodological Review A review does not always focus on what someone said [findings], but how they came about saying what they say [method of analysis]. Reviewing methods of analysis provides a framework of understanding at different levels [i.e. those of theory, substantive fields, research approaches, and data collection and analysis techniques], how researchers draw upon a wide variety of knowledge ranging from the conceptual level to practical documents for use in fieldwork in the areas of ontological and epistemological consideration, quantitative and qualitative integration, sampling, interviewing, data collection, and data analysis. This approach helps highlight ethical issues which you should be aware of and consider as you go through your own study.

Systematic Review This form consists of an overview of existing evidence pertinent to a clearly formulated research question, which uses pre-specified and standardized methods to identify and critically appraise relevant research, and to collect, report, and analyze data from the studies that are included in the review. The goal is to deliberately document, critically evaluate, and summarize scientifically all of the research about a clearly defined research problem . Typically it focuses on a very specific empirical question, often posed in a cause-and-effect form, such as "To what extent does A contribute to B?" This type of literature review is primarily applied to examining prior research studies in clinical medicine and allied health fields, but it is increasingly being used in the social sciences.

Theoretical Review The purpose of this form is to examine the corpus of theory that has accumulated in regard to an issue, concept, theory, phenomena. The theoretical literature review helps to establish what theories already exist, the relationships between them, to what degree the existing theories have been investigated, and to develop new hypotheses to be tested. Often this form is used to help establish a lack of appropriate theories or reveal that current theories are inadequate for explaining new or emerging research problems. The unit of analysis can focus on a theoretical concept or a whole theory or framework.

NOTE : Most often the literature review will incorporate some combination of types. For example, a review that examines literature supporting or refuting an argument, assumption, or philosophical problem related to the research problem will also need to include writing supported by sources that establish the history of these arguments in the literature.

Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. "Writing Narrative Literature Reviews."  Review of General Psychology 1 (September 1997): 311-320; Mark R. Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Kennedy, Mary M. "Defining a Literature." Educational Researcher 36 (April 2007): 139-147; Petticrew, Mark and Helen Roberts. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2006; Torracro, Richard. "Writing Integrative Literature Reviews: Guidelines and Examples." Human Resource Development Review 4 (September 2005): 356-367; Rocco, Tonette S. and Maria S. Plakhotnik. "Literature Reviews, Conceptual Frameworks, and Theoretical Frameworks: Terms, Functions, and Distinctions." Human Ressource Development Review 8 (March 2008): 120-130; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Thinking About Your Literature Review

The structure of a literature review should include the following in support of understanding the research problem :

• An overview of the subject, issue, or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review,
• Division of works under review into themes or categories [e.g. works that support a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative approaches entirely],
• An explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others,
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research.

The critical evaluation of each work should consider :

• Provenance -- what are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence [e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings]?
• Methodology -- were the techniques used to identify, gather, and analyze the data appropriate to addressing the research problem? Was the sample size appropriate? Were the results effectively interpreted and reported?
• Objectivity -- is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness -- which of the author's theses are most convincing or least convincing?
• Validity -- are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

II.  Development of the Literature Review

Four Basic Stages of Writing 1.  Problem formulation -- which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues? 2.  Literature search -- finding materials relevant to the subject being explored. 3.  Data evaluation -- determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic. 4.  Analysis and interpretation -- discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature.

Consider the following issues before writing the literature review: Clarify If your assignment is not specific about what form your literature review should take, seek clarification from your professor by asking these questions: 1.  Roughly how many sources would be appropriate to include? 2.  What types of sources should I review (books, journal articles, websites; scholarly versus popular sources)? 3.  Should I summarize, synthesize, or critique sources by discussing a common theme or issue? 4.  Should I evaluate the sources in any way beyond evaluating how they relate to understanding the research problem? 5.  Should I provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history? Find Models Use the exercise of reviewing the literature to examine how authors in your discipline or area of interest have composed their literature review sections. Read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or to identify ways to organize your final review. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read, such as required readings in the course syllabus, are also excellent entry points into your own research. Narrow the Topic The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to obtain a good survey of relevant resources. Your professor will probably not expect you to read everything that's available about the topic, but you'll make the act of reviewing easier if you first limit scope of the research problem. A good strategy is to begin by searching the USC Libraries Catalog for recent books about the topic and review the table of contents for chapters that focuses on specific issues. You can also review the indexes of books to find references to specific issues that can serve as the focus of your research. For example, a book surveying the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may include a chapter on the role Egypt has played in mediating the conflict, or look in the index for the pages where Egypt is mentioned in the text. Consider Whether Your Sources are Current Some disciplines require that you use information that is as current as possible. This is particularly true in disciplines in medicine and the sciences where research conducted becomes obsolete very quickly as new discoveries are made. However, when writing a review in the social sciences, a survey of the history of the literature may be required. In other words, a complete understanding the research problem requires you to deliberately examine how knowledge and perspectives have changed over time. Sort through other current bibliographies or literature reviews in the field to get a sense of what your discipline expects. You can also use this method to explore what is considered by scholars to be a "hot topic" and what is not.

III.  Ways to Organize Your Literature Review

Chronology of Events If your review follows the chronological method, you could write about the materials according to when they were published. This approach should only be followed if a clear path of research building on previous research can be identified and that these trends follow a clear chronological order of development. For example, a literature review that focuses on continuing research about the emergence of German economic power after the fall of the Soviet Union. By Publication Order your sources by publication chronology, then, only if the order demonstrates a more important trend. For instance, you could order a review of literature on environmental studies of brown fields if the progression revealed, for example, a change in the soil collection practices of the researchers who wrote and/or conducted the studies. Thematic [“conceptual categories”] A thematic literature review is the most common approach to summarizing prior research in the social and behavioral sciences. Thematic reviews are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time, although the progression of time may still be incorporated into a thematic review. For example, a review of the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics could focus on the development of online political satire. While the study focuses on one topic, the Internet’s impact on American presidential politics, it would still be organized chronologically reflecting technological developments in media. The difference in this example between a "chronological" and a "thematic" approach is what is emphasized the most: themes related to the role of the Internet in presidential politics. Note that more authentic thematic reviews tend to break away from chronological order. A review organized in this manner would shift between time periods within each section according to the point being made. Methodological A methodological approach focuses on the methods utilized by the researcher. For the Internet in American presidential politics project, one methodological approach would be to look at cultural differences between the portrayal of American presidents on American, British, and French websites. Or the review might focus on the fundraising impact of the Internet on a particular political party. A methodological scope will influence either the types of documents in the review or the way in which these documents are discussed.

Other Sections of Your Literature Review Once you've decided on the organizational method for your literature review, the sections you need to include in the paper should be easy to figure out because they arise from your organizational strategy. In other words, a chronological review would have subsections for each vital time period; a thematic review would have subtopics based upon factors that relate to the theme or issue. However, sometimes you may need to add additional sections that are necessary for your study, but do not fit in the organizational strategy of the body. What other sections you include in the body is up to you. However, only include what is necessary for the reader to locate your study within the larger scholarship about the research problem.

Here are examples of other sections, usually in the form of a single paragraph, you may need to include depending on the type of review you write:

• Current Situation : Information necessary to understand the current topic or focus of the literature review.
• Sources Used : Describes the methods and resources [e.g., databases] you used to identify the literature you reviewed.
• History : The chronological progression of the field, the research literature, or an idea that is necessary to understand the literature review, if the body of the literature review is not already a chronology.
• Selection Methods : Criteria you used to select (and perhaps exclude) sources in your literature review. For instance, you might explain that your review includes only peer-reviewed [i.e., scholarly] sources.
• Standards : Description of the way in which you present your information.
• Questions for Further Research : What questions about the field has the review sparked? How will you further your research as a result of the review?

IV.  Writing Your Literature Review

Once you've settled on how to organize your literature review, you're ready to write each section. When writing your review, keep in mind these issues.

Use Evidence A literature review section is, in this sense, just like any other academic research paper. Your interpretation of the available sources must be backed up with evidence [citations] that demonstrates that what you are saying is valid. Be Selective Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. The type of information you choose to mention should relate directly to the research problem, whether it is thematic, methodological, or chronological. Related items that provide additional information, but that are not key to understanding the research problem, can be included in a list of further readings . Use Quotes Sparingly Some short quotes are appropriate if you want to emphasize a point, or if what an author stated cannot be easily paraphrased. Sometimes you may need to quote certain terminology that was coined by the author, is not common knowledge, or taken directly from the study. Do not use extensive quotes as a substitute for using your own words in reviewing the literature. Summarize and Synthesize Remember to summarize and synthesize your sources within each thematic paragraph as well as throughout the review. Recapitulate important features of a research study, but then synthesize it by rephrasing the study's significance and relating it to your own work and the work of others. Keep Your Own Voice While the literature review presents others' ideas, your voice [the writer's] should remain front and center. For example, weave references to other sources into what you are writing but maintain your own voice by starting and ending the paragraph with your own ideas and wording. Use Caution When Paraphrasing When paraphrasing a source that is not your own, be sure to represent the author's information or opinions accurately and in your own words. Even when paraphrasing an author’s work, you still must provide a citation to that work.

V.  Common Mistakes to Avoid

These are the most common mistakes made in reviewing social science research literature.

• Sources in your literature review do not clearly relate to the research problem;
• You do not take sufficient time to define and identify the most relevant sources to use in the literature review related to the research problem;
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources rather than including relevant primary research studies or data;
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings and interpretations as valid, rather than examining critically all aspects of the research design and analysis;
• Does not describe the search procedures that were used in identifying the literature to review;
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than synthesizing them in chi-squared or meta-analytic methods; and,
• Only includes research that validates assumptions and does not consider contrary findings and alternative interpretations found in the literature.

Cook, Kathleen E. and Elise Murowchick. “Do Literature Review Skills Transfer from One Course to Another?” Psychology Learning and Teaching 13 (March 2014): 3-11; Fink, Arlene. Conducting Research Literature Reviews: From the Internet to Paper . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005; Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998; Jesson, Jill. Doing Your Literature Review: Traditional and Systematic Techniques . London: SAGE, 2011; Literature Review Handout. Online Writing Center. Liberty University; Literature Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2016; Ridley, Diana. The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students . 2nd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 2012; Randolph, Justus J. “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review." Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. vol. 14, June 2009; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016; Taylor, Dena. The Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Writing a Literature Review. Academic Skills Centre. University of Canberra.

Writing Tip

Break Out of Your Disciplinary Box!

Thinking interdisciplinarily about a research problem can be a rewarding exercise in applying new ideas, theories, or concepts to an old problem. For example, what might cultural anthropologists say about the continuing conflict in the Middle East? In what ways might geographers view the need for better distribution of social service agencies in large cities than how social workers might study the issue? You don’t want to substitute a thorough review of core research literature in your discipline for studies conducted in other fields of study. However, particularly in the social sciences, thinking about research problems from multiple vectors is a key strategy for finding new solutions to a problem or gaining a new perspective. Consult with a librarian about identifying research databases in other disciplines; almost every field of study has at least one comprehensive database devoted to indexing its research literature.

Frodeman, Robert. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity . New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Another Writing Tip

Don't Just Review for Content!

While conducting a review of the literature, maximize the time you devote to writing this part of your paper by thinking broadly about what you should be looking for and evaluating. Review not just what scholars are saying, but how are they saying it. Some questions to ask:

• How are they organizing their ideas?
• What methods have they used to study the problem?
• What theories have been used to explain, predict, or understand their research problem?
• What sources have they cited to support their conclusions?
• How have they used non-textual elements [e.g., charts, graphs, figures, etc.] to illustrate key points?

When you begin to write your literature review section, you'll be glad you dug deeper into how the research was designed and constructed because it establishes a means for developing more substantial analysis and interpretation of the research problem.

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1 998.

Yet Another Writing Tip

When Do I Know I Can Stop Looking and Move On?

Here are several strategies you can utilize to assess whether you've thoroughly reviewed the literature:

• Look for repeating patterns in the research findings . If the same thing is being said, just by different people, then this likely demonstrates that the research problem has hit a conceptual dead end. At this point consider: Does your study extend current research?  Does it forge a new path? Or, does is merely add more of the same thing being said?
• Look at sources the authors cite to in their work . If you begin to see the same researchers cited again and again, then this is often an indication that no new ideas have been generated to address the research problem.
• Search Google Scholar to identify who has subsequently cited leading scholars already identified in your literature review [see next sub-tab]. This is called citation tracking and there are a number of sources that can help you identify who has cited whom, particularly scholars from outside of your discipline. Here again, if the same authors are being cited again and again, this may indicate no new literature has been written on the topic.

Onwuegbuzie, Anthony J. and Rebecca Frels. Seven Steps to a Comprehensive Literature Review: A Multimodal and Cultural Approach . Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2016; Sutton, Anthea. Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review . Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2016.

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The Importance of Literature Review in Academic Writing

The literature review holds paramount importance in academic writing for several reasons. Firstly, it serves as a comprehensive survey of existing research, establishing a solid foundation for the author’s work. It helps identify gaps, trends, and debates in the chosen field, guiding researchers toward relevant and valuable contributions. Additionally, a well-crafted literature review demonstrates the author’s understanding of the subject, showcases critical thinking skills, and enhances the credibility of the academic work by contextualizing it within the broader scholarly conversation. Overall, the literature review is an indispensable component that enriches the depth and quality of academic writing.

What is the role of a literature review in academic writing

The literature review plays a crucial role in academic writing by serving several important functions;

• Establishing Context:  A literature review provides the context for the research by summarizing and synthesizing existing knowledge on the chosen topic. It helps readers understand the background and the current state of the subject matter.
• Identifying Gaps in Knowledge:  Through a literature review, researchers can identify gaps, controversies, or areas where more research is needed. This helps in justifying the significance of the new study and contributing to the existing body of knowledge.
• Formulating Research Questions or Hypotheses:  By reviewing existing literature, researchers can derive relevant research questions or hypotheses. This ensures that the study is informed by and contributes to the broader academic discourse.
• Building a Theoretical Framework:  A literature review helps in building the theoretical framework for a study by examining and summarizing relevant theories and concepts from previous research. It provides a conceptual foundation for the current research.
• Selecting Methodology:  Understanding how previous studies were conducted helps researchers in selecting an appropriate methodology for their own research. It also assists in avoiding potential pitfalls or methodological errors.
• Avoiding Duplication:  Researchers can identify what has already been done, preventing duplication of efforts. This helps in ensuring that the new study adds value and contributes to the existing knowledge.
• Critically Evaluating Sources:  A literature review involves a critical analysis of the quality and reliability of the sources. This ensures that the information used in the study is credible and relevant.
• Synthesizing Information:  A literature review involves synthesizing information from various sources to present a cohesive and comprehensive understanding of the topic. It helps in drawing connections and patterns in the existing research.
• Providing a Historical Perspective:  It offers a historical perspective on the development of ideas and concepts within a specific field, allowing readers to trace the evolution of thought over time.
• Supporting or Challenging Arguments:  The literature review supports the author’s arguments by presenting evidence from existing research. It may also highlight conflicting findings or alternative perspectives that contribute to a balanced discussion.

In summary, the literature review is a critical component of academic writing, serving as a foundation for the research, guiding methodology, and contributing to the scholarly conversation within a particular field.

How does a literature review contribute to the overall quality of a research paper

A literature review contributes significantly to the overall quality of a research paper in several ways:

• Establishing Credibility:  By reviewing relevant and reputable sources, a literature review helps establish the credibility of the research. It shows that the author is well-informed about existing scholarship on the topic.
• Identifying Research Gaps:  The literature review identifies gaps, controversies, or unanswered questions in the current body of knowledge. This not only justifies the need for the new study but also highlights its potential contribution to the field.
• Providing Context and Background:  A literature review provides context by summarizing and synthesizing existing research. It helps readers understand the historical development, key concepts, and current state of the research topic.
• Guiding Research Questions or Hypotheses:  The literature review informs the formulation of research questions or hypotheses by revealing what is already known and what remains unknown in the field. This ensures that the study is focused and relevant.
• Building a Theoretical Framework:  It contributes to building a theoretical framework by examining and summarizing relevant theories and concepts. This theoretical foundation helps structure the research and guide the analysis.
• Selecting Appropriate Methodology:  Knowledge of how previous studies were conducted informs the choice of methodology for the new research. This ensures that the research design is well-suited to address the specific objectives of the study.
• Avoiding Duplication:  The literature review helps prevent duplication of efforts by identifying what has already been studied. This ensures that the new research contributes something novel to the existing body of knowledge.
• Providing a Critical Analysis:  A literature review involves critically evaluating the quality, reliability, and relevance of sources. This ensures that only credible and pertinent information is included in the research paper.
• Synthesizing Information:  By synthesizing information from diverse sources, a literature review presents a comprehensive and cohesive understanding of the research topic. It helps in drawing connections and identifying patterns in the existing literature.
• Supporting Arguments:  The literature review supports the author’s arguments and hypotheses by providing evidence from previous studies. It demonstrates how the current research fits into the broader scholarly conversation.

In essence, a well-executed literature review enhances the overall quality of a research paper by providing a solid foundation, guiding the research process, and ensuring that the study contributes meaningfully to the academic discourse in its respective field.

What are the key objectives of conducting a literature review in academic research

The key objectives of conducting a literature review in academic research include;

• Identifying Existing Knowledge:  To review and summarize the current state of knowledge on a particular topic or research question, understanding what is already known.
• Establishing Context:  To provide the necessary background and context for the research, helping readers understand the significance of the study.
• Identifying Gaps and Research Questions:  To identify gaps, controversies, or areas where further research is needed, which helps in formulating specific research questions or hypotheses.
• Building a Theoretical Framework:  To review and synthesize relevant theories and concepts that will form the theoretical foundation of the research.
• Guiding Methodology:  To inform the selection of appropriate research methodologies and methods based on the strengths and weaknesses of previous studies.
• Avoiding Duplication:  To ensure that the research contributes something new to the existing body of knowledge, preventing unnecessary duplication of previous studies.
• Critical Evaluation:  To critically evaluate the quality, reliability, and validity of existing literature, ensuring that only credible sources are used to support the research.
• Synthesizing Information:  To synthesize information from diverse sources, presenting a cohesive and comprehensive understanding of the topic.
• Identifying Key Concepts and Variables:  To identify and define key concepts, variables, and terms relevant to the research study.
• Understanding Methodological Approaches:  To understand how previous studies were conducted, helping researchers learn from successes and pitfalls in methodology.
• Recognizing Trends and Patterns:  To identify trends, patterns, and recurring themes in the literature, providing insights into the broader context of the research.
• Contextualizing Findings:  To place the research findings in the context of existing knowledge, allowing for a more nuanced interpretation of results.
• Informing Literature Selection:  To guide the selection of literature relevant to the research topic, ensuring that the review is focused and comprehensive.
• Supporting or Challenging Arguments:  To provide evidence and support for the arguments or hypotheses presented in the research, or to highlight conflicting findings in the literature.
• Contributing to Theoretical Debates:  To actively contribute to theoretical debates and discussions within the academic field.
• Enhancing the Rigor of Research:  To enhance the overall rigor and validity of the research by basing it on a solid foundation of existing knowledge.

The objectives of a literature review in academic research are multi-faceted, ranging from understanding existing knowledge to guiding the research process and ensuring the credibility and significance of the study.

How does a literature review help establish the research gap in a particular field

A literature review plays a crucial role in identifying and establishing the research gap in a particular field through the following mechanisms;

• Summarizing Existing Knowledge:  The literature review provides a comprehensive summary of existing research on a given topic, allowing researchers to understand the current state of knowledge in the field.
• Identifying Patterns and Trends:  By reviewing multiple studies, a literature review helps researchers identify patterns, trends, and common themes in the existing literature. This analysis highlights areas where research has been concentrated and areas where it may be lacking.
• Highlighting Consensus and Controversies:  The literature review reveals areas where there is a consensus among researchers and areas where there are conflicting findings or ongoing debates. This can point to gaps in understanding that require further investigation.
• Pointing to Unanswered Questions:  As researchers analyze the literature, they may come across questions that have not been adequately addressed or answered by existing studies. These unanswered questions signify potential research gaps.
• Examining Methodological Limitations:  A thorough literature review involves evaluating the methodologies employed in previous studies. Identifying limitations or gaps in methodology can suggest areas where further research is needed to address these shortcomings.
• Assessing Currency of Information:  If there is a lack of recent studies on a specific aspect of a topic, it may indicate that there is a gap in recent research that needs attention.
• Considering Emerging Trends:  The literature review allows researchers to identify emerging trends or new developments in the field. These trends may open up avenues for novel research directions.
• Evaluating Geographical or Cultural Gaps:  Geographical or cultural gaps in the literature can also indicate areas where further research is needed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the topic.
• Analyzing Changes Over Time:  A temporal analysis of the literature can reveal how research on a particular topic has evolved. Recognizing changes and shifts in focus over time may uncover gaps in understanding that need addressing.
• Seeking Gaps in Application:  Researchers can identify gaps in the application of theoretical frameworks or interventions within practical settings. This may suggest opportunities for applied research.

By systematically examining the existing literature and critically evaluating its content, methodologies, and findings, researchers can pinpoint areas where knowledge is incomplete or where further investigation is necessary. Identifying these gaps helps shape the rationale for the new study and positions it within the broader context of the existing body of knowledge.

In what ways does a literature review assist in framing research questions and hypotheses

A literature review assists in framing research questions and hypotheses in several ways;

• Identification of Existing Knowledge:  A literature review provides an overview of existing knowledge on a particular topic, helping researchers understand what has already been studied and established in the field.
• Identification of Gaps:  By analyzing the existing literature, researchers can identify gaps, limitations, or unanswered questions. These gaps serve as a basis for formulating research questions, as they highlight areas where new knowledge is needed.
• Understanding Theoretical Foundations:  The literature review helps researchers understand the theoretical frameworks and concepts that have been used in previous studies. This understanding guides the formulation of research questions that align with established theories or challenge existing paradigms.
• Inspiration from Previous Research:  Reviewing the literature provides researchers with insights and inspiration from previous studies. It helps them identify interesting phenomena, patterns, or trends that can lead to the formulation of relevant and meaningful research questions.
• Identification of Variables:  Researchers can identify key variables, factors, or elements that have been studied in the literature. This identification informs the formulation of hypotheses and guides the operationalization of variables in the research design.
• Clarity in Focus:  A literature review helps researchers narrow down the scope of their study by clarifying the focus and defining the specific aspects of the topic that need further investigation. This clarity contributes to the formulation of precise and focused research questions.
• Understanding Methodologies:  By examining the methodologies used in previous studies, researchers gain insights into various research approaches. This understanding guides the selection of an appropriate research methodology for their own study, influencing the formulation of research questions.
• Building on Previous Findings:  Researchers may build on or extend previous findings identified in the literature. Formulating research questions in the context of existing research allows for the advancement of knowledge and contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversation.
• Alignment with Research Goals:  The literature review helps researchers align their research questions with the overarching goals and objectives of the study. This ensures that the research questions are relevant and contribute meaningfully to the field.
• Contextualizing Hypotheses:  Based on the insights gained from the literature review, researchers can formulate hypotheses that are grounded in existing theories or empirical evidence. This contextualization strengthens the rationale for the hypotheses.

A well-conducted literature review informs and guides the process of formulating research questions and hypotheses by providing a foundation of knowledge, highlighting gaps, and offering insights from previous studies. This ensures that the research questions are relevant, theoretically grounded, and contribute to the advancement of the field.

Can a well-conducted literature review enhance the credibility of academic research

Yes! A well-conducted literature review is  essential  for enhancing the credibility of academic research in several ways;

1. Demonstrates Expertise:  A comprehensive review shows you have a deep understanding of the existing knowledge and relevant theory in your field. This establishes you as an authority and positions your research within the broader context.

2. Justifies Significance:  By reviewing past studies, you can clarify the gaps in research and highlight why your project addresses a crucial, unanswered question. This strengthens the purpose and originality of your work.

3. Supports Methodological Choices:  You can use past research to justify your chosen methods, data collection, and analysis strategies. This demonstrates rigor and helps readers understand how your work builds upon previous findings.

4. Identifies Limitations and Strengths:  Recognizing strengths and limitations of earlier studies allows you to position your research strategically. You can address limitations of past work or build upon their strengths, demonstrating a critical and informed approach.

5. Shows Engagement with the Field:  Engaging with other scholars' work showcases your awareness of ongoing debates and conversations in your field. This demonstrates you are actively contributing to the advancement of knowledge.

Beyond Credibility:

A strong literature review goes beyond just building trust. It can also:

• Spark new research ideas:  Examining diverse perspectives can trigger innovative ways to approach your research question.
• Identify potential challenges:  Awareness of previous difficulties can help you anticipate and address similar issues in your study.
• Strengthen your arguments:  Referencing relevant findings bolsters your conclusions and persuades readers of their validity.
• Thoroughness matters:  Aim for a comprehensive review, including both supportive and opposing viewpoints.
• Critical analysis is key:  Don’t just summarize; evaluate, compare, and contrast different studies to demonstrate your critical thinking skills.
• Clarity is crucial:  Organize your review logically and present it in a clear, concise, and easy-to-follow manner.

By investing time and effort in conducting a well-structured and insightful literature review, you’ll lay a solid foundation for your research and significantly enhance its credibility and potential impact.

How does the literature review process aid in identifying key theories and concepts relevant to the research topic

The literature review process plays a crucial role in identifying key theories and concepts relevant to your research topic in several ways;

1. Exposure to Existing Knowledge:  As you dive into relevant scholarly articles, books, and other sources, you’ll be exposed to the prevailing theories and concepts surrounding your topic. This initial immersion provides a broad understanding of the landscape and potential key players.

2. Identifying Recurring Themes and Ideas:  As you analyze and synthesize the collected information, you’ll start noticing recurring themes, terminologies, and arguments. These recurrent elements likely represent the key theories and concepts shaping the field.

3. Recognizing Debates and Contradictions:  A good literature review doesn’t shy away from presenting opposing viewpoints and ongoing debates. Recognizing these tensions and contradictions can highlight unresolved questions or emerging concepts, guiding your own research focus.

4. Evaluating Strengths and Weaknesses of Existing Theories:  Critically analyzing past research allows you to identify the strengths and limitations of existing theories. This helps you understand which theories are robust and applicable and which areas need further exploration, potentially leading to innovative approaches.

5. Building Upon Previous Work:  The literature review allows you to see how different theories and concepts relate to each other and your research question. This knowledge helps you position your work within the existing conversation, building upon established ideas or introducing new ones.

Additional Tips

• Keyword Exploration:  Utilize relevant keywords in your search queries to discover important theories and concepts associated with your topic.
• Author Tracking:  Pay attention to frequently cited authors and influential figures in your field. Their work often reflects key theories and concepts.
• Consult Experts:  Engage with professors, researchers, or librarians specializing in your field. They can provide guidance on prominent theories and suggest relevant sources.
• Conceptual Mapping:  Visualize the relationships between concepts and theories you encounter through mind maps or diagrams. This aids in identifying key players and their connections.

What challenges might researchers face when conducting a literature review, and how can these be addressed

Conducting a robust literature review can be an enriching, yet challenging, experience for researchers. Here are some common hurdles and tips on how to overcome them:

1. Information Overload:  With the vast amount of published research available, it can be overwhelming to identify, select, and manage relevant sources.

• Develop a focused research question:  This helps refine your search terms and target specific areas within the broader field.
• Utilize advanced search techniques:  Boolean operators, filters, and keyword variations can improve the precision of your search results.
• Leverage reference management tools:  Software like Mendeley or Zotero help organize and annotate your findings efficiently.

2. Bias and Incomplete Coverage:  Your search strategy and chosen sources might unintentionally introduce bias towards particular viewpoints or neglect relevant areas.

• Consult with librarians or research experts:  They can offer guidance on diverse perspectives and alternative databases beyond the typical search engines.
• Seek out dissenting voices and alternative methodologies:  Consider including research that challenges your initial assumptions to ensure a balanced review.
• Be transparent about limitations:  Acknowledge potential biases and acknowledge areas where your review might be incomplete.

3. Difficulty Analyzing and Synthesizing Information:  Turning information into meaningful insights can be challenging, especially when dealing with conflicting studies or complex concepts.

• Develop a clear analytical framework:  This helps you categorize and evaluate studies based on specific criteria like methodology, theoretical perspectives, and findings.
• Identify key themes and arguments:  Look for recurring patterns and contrasting viewpoints across different studies.
• Use critical thinking skills:  Evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, and potential limitations of each study and its contribution to your understanding.

4. Time Constraints:  Conducting a thorough literature review can be time-consuming, especially for students or researchers with limited resources.

• Develop a realistic timeline:  Break down the review process into manageable steps and allocate sufficient time for each stage.
• Prioritize sources strategically:  Focus on highly relevant and impactful studies initially, then expand your search as needed.
• Seek support from peers or mentors:  Discuss your progress and challenges with others to stay motivated and receive feedback.

5. Access to Resources:  Paywalled journals and limited library access can pose a barrier for some researchers, particularly those affiliated with smaller institutions.

• Explore open access resources:  Numerous online platforms offer free access to scholarly articles and books.
• Utilize interlibrary loan services:  Libraries can often borrow materials from other institutions for you.
• Network with other researchers:  Share resources and potentially collaborate with colleagues who have access to different databases.

Conducting a well-structured and thoughtful literature review is an iterative process. Don’t be afraid to revisit your search terms, adjust your focus, and seek help when needed. By actively addressing these challenges, you can transform your literature review from a chore into a valuable tool for enriching your research project and enhancing its intellectual contribution.

How does a literature review help researchers avoid duplication of existing studies

A well-conducted literature review serves as a powerful tool for researchers to avoid duplication of existing studies in several ways;

1. Unveiling Existing Knowledge:  By diligently exploring past research, researchers gain a comprehensive understanding of what has already been explored and established in their field. This knowledge enables them to identify areas where further investigation is truly needed, preventing them from replicating what’s already known.

2. Building Upon Previous Work:  The literature review allows researchers to discover the strengths and weaknesses of past studies. This empowers them to build upon existing findings, addressing identified limitations or extending the investigation in new directions, rather than simply repeating previous efforts.

3. Identifying Gaps and Unanswered Questions:  Through critical analysis of past research, researchers can pinpoint areas where knowledge is lacking or existing conclusions remain inconclusive. This guides them towards formulating original research questions that address these gaps and contribute novel insights to the field.

4. Recognizing Methodological Approaches:  Examining methodologies employed in earlier studies helps researchers understand the effectiveness and limitations of specific methods. This knowledge allows them to adapt or design innovative approaches that avoid replicating potential flaws or inefficiencies in past studies.

5. Avoiding the “Reinventing the Wheel” Pitfall:  By immersing themselves in the existing scholarship, researchers prevent themselves from unknowingly replicating established knowledge or methodologies. This saves valuable time and resources, allowing them to focus on truly innovative and impactful research contributions.

• Utilize systematic review techniques:  These involve rigorous search strategies, selection criteria, and data analysis methods to ensure comprehensive coverage and minimize duplication.
• Consult research databases and tools:  Many platforms offer features like citation analysis and duplicate detection to help researchers identify overlapping studies.
• Engage with experts and peers:  Discussing your research topic and findings with experts or peers can help you identify areas where duplication might occur or suggest alternative directions for your study.
• Clearly define your research question:  A well-defined research question ensures your study focuses on a specific gap in knowledge, minimizing the risk of unintentional duplication.

A literature review is not just about summarizing past research; it’s about critically evaluating it and using that knowledge to guide your own original contribution to the field. By diligently conducting your review and embracing its insights, you can avoid the pitfall of duplication and ensure your research makes a distinct and valuable impact.

In what ways does a literature review contribute to the theoretical framework of a research study

A literature review plays a crucial role in shaping and solidifying the theoretical framework of your research study in several key ways;

1. Identifying Relevant Theories and Concepts:  Through your exploration of existing research, you’ll encounter prominent theories and concepts related to your topic. These serve as the building blocks for your own theoretical framework.

2. Understanding Established Explanations:  The review exposes you to diverse theoretical explanations for the phenomena you’re investigating. This knowledge helps you understand the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of existing explanations.

3. Selecting and Justifying Your Framework:  Based on your understanding of existing theories and the specific focus of your research question, you can select the most relevant theories to form your theoretical framework. The literature review then serves as justification for your choice, demonstrating why these specific theories are best suited to address your research question.

4. Building Upon or Challenging Existing Theories:  Depending on your findings, the literature review might support and contribute to established theories by providing new evidence or deeper insights. Alternatively, it might challenge existing theories by highlighting their limitations or offering alternative explanations.

5. Demonstrating Theoretical Coherence:  Your literature review should showcase how the chosen theories connect with each other and how they collectively underpin your research question and methodology. This ensures a cohesive and well-reasoned theoretical framework.

6. Highlighting Originality and Significance:  By clearly demonstrating how your theoretical framework builds upon, departs from, or refines existing theories, the literature review emphasizes the originality and potential significance of your research contribution.

• Clearly articulate your research question:  This guides your search for relevant theories and ensures your framework directly addresses your specific inquiry.
• Engage in critical analysis:  Don’t simply accept theories on face value. Evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and internal consistency through the lens of your research question.
• Consult experts and peers:  Discuss your chosen theories and their connection to your research with experts or peers for feedback and refinement.
• Maintain clear connections:  Throughout your research, demonstrate how your findings relate back to your theoretical framework, illustrating its explanatory power and validity.

How can a comprehensive literature review help researchers contextualize their findings within the existing body of knowledge

A comprehensive literature review plays a crucial role in contextualizing research findings within the existing body of knowledge by serving several key functions:

1. Setting the Stage:  The review provides a historical and theoretical background for your research topic. It establishes the current state of knowledge, key debates, and unresolved questions, creating a framework for understanding your findings.

2. Identifying Comparisons and Contrasts:  By showcasing related research and its conclusions, the review allows you to compare your findings to existing knowledge. This highlights similarities, discrepancies, and novel contributions, demonstrating the significance of your study.

3. Explaining Your Results:  You can leverage the review to explain your findings in relation to established theories and explanations. This strengthens the validity and generalizability of your conclusions by demonstrating how they fit within the larger picture.

4. Addressing Limitations and Implications:  The review helps you identify the limitations of your study and acknowledge areas where further research is needed. It also allows you to discuss the potential implications of your findings for future research and practical applications.

5. Engaging in Scholarly Conversation:  By referencing and critically analyzing previous studies, the review showcases your engagement with the existing scholarship. This positions you as a contributor to the ongoing conversation within your field.

• Maintain a Focus:  While providing context, ensure your review remains focused on your specific research question and avoids irrelevant tangents.
• Integrate Findings Seamlessly:  Weave your research findings into the review naturally, highlighting their unique contribution and connection to established knowledge.
• Acknowledge Different Perspectives:  Don’t shy away from presenting contrasting viewpoints or alternative interpretations. This demonstrates a balanced and critical approach.
• Use Clear Language and Structure:  Present your review in a way that is easy to understand and navigate for your target audience.

What role does a literature review play in identifying methodological approaches used in previous research studies

A literature review plays a crucial role in identifying methodological approaches used in previous research studies, serving as a foundation for designing your own methodology and demonstrating its significance. Here’s how;

1. Unveiling Existing Methods:  By exploring studies relevant to your topic, you’ll discover the diverse methods employed by other researchers. This expands your understanding of how different research questions can be addressed through different methodologies.

2. Evaluating Strengths and Weaknesses:  The review allows you to critically analyze the effectiveness and limitations of various methods used in past studies. This helps you understand the suitability of certain approaches for your specific research question and context.

3. Informing Your Choice:  Based on your understanding of existing methods and the specific demands of your research question, you can make informed decisions about the most appropriate methodology for your study. This ensures your chosen approach aligns with both theoretical foundations and established practices.

4. Justifying Your Methodology:  The literature review becomes a tool for justifying your chosen methods. By showcasing how your approach addresses limitations of past studies or offers a unique perspective, you demonstrate the suitability and potential advantages of your methodology.

5. Avoiding Pitfalls and Inefficiencies:  Analyzing past methods helps you identify potential pitfalls or inefficiencies associated with specific approaches. This allows you to adapt existing methods or design new ones that avoid these weaknesses, leading to a more robust and efficient research process.

• Categorize Methods:  Organize your findings by grouping similar methodological approaches or research designs. This helps you compare and contrast their applicability.
• Consider Your Research Question:  Always evaluate methods through the lens of your specific research question and data needs. Don’t blindly mimic others; choose based on suitability.
• Consult Experts and Peers:  Discuss your chosen methodology and its connection to your research question with experts or peers for feedback and refinement.
• Clearly Explain Your Choices:  In your research report, clearly explain your chosen methodology, justifying it by referencing relevant past studies and highlighting its unique advantages.

How can a literature review help researchers identify potential sources of bias or limitations in existing studies

A literature review serves as a powerful tool for researchers to identify potential sources of bias and limitations in existing studies by offering several key perspectives;

1. Scrutinizing Design and Methodology:  Examining research methods and design choices allows you to pinpoint potential sources of bias. Consider factors like sample selection, data collection procedures, and control groups. Look for imbalances, subjectivity, or lack of randomization that could skew results.

2. Evaluating Data Analysis and Interpretation:  Analyze how studies handled data analysis and interpretation of findings. Look for selective reporting of data, subjective interpretations, or questionable statistical methods that might introduce bias or limit the validity of conclusions.

3. Identifying Conflicting Results and Gaps in Evidence:  Comparing and contrasting findings across different studies can reveal inconsistencies or discrepancies. These conflicting results might point towards potential biases in specific studies or highlight limitations in the overall body of evidence.

4. Considering Author Bias and Research Context:  Be aware of potential author biases related to funding sources, personal beliefs, or institutional affiliations. Examine the broader research context and prevailing discourses to identify potential biases shaping the field.

5. Consulting Quality Assessment Tools:  Leverage established tools like the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias tool or the PRISMA checklist to systematically assess the methodological quality of reviewed studies. These tools highlight potential weaknesses and limitations for further consideration.

• Develop a Critical Mindset:  Approach your review with a questioning attitude, actively seeking potential flaws and limitations in methodology, analysis, and conclusions.
• Consult Experts and Peers:  Discuss your findings and identified biases with experts or peers in your field. Their insights can help you refine your analysis and gain broader perspectives.
• Clearly Report Identified Biases:  Don’t shy away from acknowledging and discussing potential biases in existing studies. This demonstrates transparency and strengthens your analysis.
• Use Your Findings to Guide Your Research:  Identify and address limitations in previous studies by designing your research to overcome them. This contributes to a more robust and comprehensive understanding of your topic.

What impact does a thorough literature review have on the formulation of a research methodology

A thorough literature review can have a  profound impact  on the formulation of your research methodology by influencing several key aspects;

1. Identifying Relevant Research Designs:  The review exposes you to diverse research designs used in previous studies related to your topic. This broadens your understanding of how specific questions can be addressed and helps you choose the most suitable design for your own research question.

2. Selecting Appropriate Data Collection Methods:  By analyzing the methods used in past studies, you gain insights into the effectiveness and limitations of different data collection techniques. This knowledge empowers you to select methods that align with your research design and the type of data you need to answer your question.

3. Considering Sampling Strategies:  Exploring how previous studies selected their samples allows you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different sampling techniques. This informs your decisions regarding sample size, representativeness, and potential biases associated with different sampling strategies.

4. Developing Data Analysis Procedures:  Reviewing past studies' analysis methods helps you understand different approaches to data processing, interpretation, and statistical techniques. This allows you to adapt or create appropriate analysis procedures tailored to your specific research question and data type.

5. Anticipating Potential Challenges:  Analyzing the limitations and challenges encountered in past studies equips you to proactively address similar issues in your own research. This helps you refine your methodology and plan mitigation strategies to ensure data quality and validity.

6. Justifying Your Chosen Methods:  The literature review becomes a foundation for justifying your chosen methods. By highlighting how your approach addresses limitations of past studies or offers a unique perspective, you demonstrate the suitability and potential advantages of your methodology.

• Focus on Methodological Relevance:  When analyzing past studies, prioritize those that adopted research designs and methods closest to your own inquiry.
• Consult Experts and Peers:  Share your chosen methodology and its connection to your research question with experts or peers for feedback and refinement.
• Maintain Rigor and Transparency:  Ensure your chosen methods align with recognized research standards and clearly explain their rationale in your research report.

How does the literature review process contribute to the synthesis of information from various sources

The literature review process plays a crucial role in synthesizing information from various sources by several key mechanisms;

1. Critical Evaluation and Comparison:  You don’t simply summarize each source individually; you actively compare and contrast their findings, methodologies, and theoretical perspectives. This helps you identify commonalities, inconsistencies, and unique contributions of each source.

2. Identification of Key Themes and Arguments:  Through in-depth analysis, you uncover recurring themes, arguments, and concepts across different sources. This allows you to synthesize diverse information into a cohesive understanding of the overall knowledge landscape surrounding your topic.

3. Building Connections and Relationships:  You go beyond just presenting findings side-by-side. You actively build connections between different sources, highlighting how they support, contradict, or expand upon each other’s ideas. This creates a richer and more nuanced understanding of the topic.

4. Integrating Theories and Explanations:  You don’t just list theories; you evaluate their strengths and weaknesses within the context of your research question. By integrating relevant theories from different sources, you create a robust theoretical framework that informs your own research and analysis.

5. Constructing New Knowledge:  Synthesis is not just about summarizing; it’s about drawing new insights and interpretations based on the combined information. By critically analyzing and creatively connecting across sources, you can formulate original perspectives and contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

• Utilize Visual Tools:  Mind maps, concept maps, or diagrams can help visualize relationships between different sources and key findings.
• Develop a Coding System:  Categorize different sources based on themes, methodologies, or viewpoints to facilitate comparison and synthesis.
• Write Critically and Analytically:  Don’t simply paraphrase; analyze, evaluate, and interpret the information from different sources in light of your research question.
• Maintain Transparency and Source Attribution:  Clearly acknowledge the sources you use and ensure proper citation practices throughout your review.

By engaging in these active synthesis processes, the literature review becomes much more than a collection of summaries. It transforms into a powerful tool for generating new knowledge, refining your research question, and contributing meaningfully to the existing body of scholarship. 

What strategies can researchers employ to critically evaluate and synthesize diverse literature in their field

Researchers can employ a variety of strategies to critically evaluate and synthesize diverse literature in their field;

Evaluation Strategies

• Scrutinize Methodology:  Analyze the research design, sample selection, data collection, and analysis methods used in each source. Consider potential biases, limitations, and strengths of each approach.
• Evaluate Theoretical Frameworks:  Examine the theoretical perspectives underpinning each study. Are they well-justified? Do they align with other studies and your own research question?
• Assess Findings and Claims:  Don’t accept results at face value. Critically evaluate the evidence and arguments presented, considering alternative interpretations and potential counter-arguments.
• Consider Author Credibility:  Look at the author’s expertise and publication history in the field. Are they respected figures? Do they have potential biases or conflicts of interest?
• Compare and Contrast Sources:  Actively compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions across different sources. Identify similarities, discrepancies, and unique contributions of each study.

Synthesis Strategies

• Identify Recurring Themes and Arguments:  As you analyze sources, look for common threads, concepts, and debates emerging across the literature. Organize your findings around these themes for clarity.
• Build Connections and Relationships:  Don’t present sources in isolation. Highlight how they relate to each other, building a cohesive understanding of the topic. Show how they support, contradict, or expand upon each other’s ideas.
• Develop a Synthesis Framework:  Create a structure to organize your synthesis, such as chronological analysis, thematic comparison, or methodological critique. This framework will guide your analysis and presentation.
• Integrate and Interpret:  Go beyond simply summarizing. Use the combined information to draw new insights, interpretations, and conclusions relevant to your research question.
• Utilize Visual Tools:  Mind maps, concept maps, or diagrams can help visualize relationships between sources, themes, and key findings.
• Consult Experts and Peers:  Discuss your findings and interpretations with scholars or colleagues in your field. Their feedback can refine your analysis and identify potential blind spots.
• Utilize Specialized Tools:  Software like NVivo or ATLAS.ti can help manage and analyze large amounts of literature data.
• Maintain Transparency and Citation:  Clearly acknowledge the sources you use and ensure proper citation practices throughout your work.
• Focus on Quality Over Quantity:  Don’t aim for an exhaustive review at the expense of depth. Prioritize high-quality, relevant sources that offer significant insights.

How does a literature review contribute to the identification of key variables and concepts in a research study

A well-conducted literature review plays a crucial role in identifying key variables and concepts for your research study in several ways;

1. Unveiling Relevant Domains and Theories:  By immersing yourself in the existing scholarship, you’ll encounter various theories and concepts surrounding your topic. These serve as starting points for identifying potential variables relevant to your research question.

2. Identifying Relationships and Interactions:  Through your analysis, you’ll discover how different concepts and variables are linked within existing studies. This helps you understand potential interactions and dependencies between factors you might investigate.

3. Examining Measurements and Operationalizations:  Reviewing past research methods allows you to see how specific variables have been operationalized and measured. This informs your own choices regarding how to define and measure relevant variables in your study.

4. Recognizing Contextual Factors:  The literature review exposes you to various contextual factors that might influence the variables you’re interested in. This awareness helps you identify potential moderator or control variables that need consideration in your research design.

5. Spotlighting Gaps and Untapped Potential:  Analyzing past studies can reveal areas where specific variables haven’t been fully explored or their interactions haven’t been examined. This highlights opportunities for you to explore novel variables or investigate existing ones from a unique perspective.

• Develop a Focused Research Question:  A clear and specific research question guides your search for relevant variables and ensures you don’t get overwhelmed by too much information.
• Utilize Key Terms and Search Operators:  Explore the literature using relevant keywords and Boolean operators to refine your search and target specific concepts or variables.
• Consult With Experts and Peers:  Discuss your research topic and potential variables with experts or colleagues in your field. Their insights can point you towards important concepts and suggest different perspectives.
• Conduct Thematic Analysis:  Organize your findings by grouping related concepts and variables. This visualizes their connections and helps you identify key elements for your research.
• Maintain Theoretical Coherence:  Ensure the identified variables and concepts align with your chosen theoretical framework, demonstrating their relevance to your research question.

The literature review is not just about passively collecting information; it’s about actively analyzing and making connections. By critically engaging with existing research, you’ll unearth the key variables and concepts that form the foundation of your study, ensuring its relevance, depth, and potential to add new knowledge to your field.

Can a literature review help researchers recognize trends and emerging themes in a particular academic field

Yes! A well-conducted literature review can be a powerful tool for researchers to recognize trends and emerging themes in a particular academic field. Here’s how;

1. Identifying Patterns and Recurring Concepts:  As you delve into existing research, you’ll naturally start noticing recurring themes, ideas, and methodologies being employed across different studies. These patterns can point towards emerging trends gaining traction within the field.

2. Tracking Shifts in Focus and Emphasis:  By comparing older studies with recent ones, you can identify shifts in the field’s focus. Are there new research questions gaining prominence? Are specific methodologies gaining favor? Recognizing these shifts can highlight emerging trends.

3. Analyzing Debates and Controversies:  Examining ongoing debates and controversies within the literature can reveal areas where new knowledge is being actively sought. These discussions often point towards potential trends in the field as researchers explore various solutions or interpretations.

4. Recognizing Gaps and Unexplored Areas:  A thorough literature review often uncovers gaps in previous research or areas where existing knowledge remains incomplete. Identifying these gaps can lead you to potential new trends as researchers strive to address them with their studies.

5. Utilizing Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis:  Analyzing citation patterns and trends in publication dates can reveal which areas are attracting increasing attention and potential emerging trends that are gaining momentum within the field.

• Develop a Broad Search Strategy:  Don’t limit yourself to specific journals or disciplines. Cast a wider net to capture diverse perspectives and identify potential trends across different subfields.
• Use Critical Analysis:  Don’t simply accept trends at face value. Analyze their potential causes, implications, and validity. Are they supported by evidence, or are they merely hype?
• Consult Experts and Peers:  Discuss your findings and interpretations with scholars or colleagues in your field. Their insights can help you confirm or refine your understanding of emerging trends.
• Consider the Broader Context:  Analyze how emerging trends within your field connect with developments in other disciplines or societal changes. This adds context and depth to your understanding.
• Stay Updated:  Regularly review new literature and attend conferences to keep informed of the latest developments and emerging trends in your field.

What is the significance of staying updated on the latest literature when conducting a literature review

Staying updated on the latest literature holds immense significance for conducting a thorough and impactful literature review in several ways;

1. Ensuring Comprehensiveness and Relevance:  The field of research is constantly evolving, with new studies, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks emerging regularly. By incorporating the latest literature, you ensure your review encompasses the most current knowledge and findings, leading to a more comprehensive and relevant understanding of your topic.

2. Identifying Novel Research Questions and Gaps:  Recent publications often highlight new areas of inquiry and potential shortcomings in existing knowledge. Staying updated helps you identify gaps in research and formulate innovative research questions that address these unresolved issues, contributing to the advancement of your field.

3. Avoiding Outdated Information and Biases:  Relying solely on older literature might lead you to perpetuate outdated understandings or miss vital advancements that challenge previous biases. Staying updated ensures your review reflects the current state of knowledge and avoids misinterpretations based on superseded information.

4. Demonstrating Rigor and Expertise:  Incorporating recent, high-quality studies into your review showcases your awareness of the latest developments and strengthens the credibility of your work. It demonstrates your commitment to conducting a thorough and well-informed analysis.

5. Fostering Collaboration and Networking:  Engaging with the latest literature opens doors for collaboration with researchers exploring similar topics and methodologies. Utilizing new tools and platforms for scholarly communication allows you to connect with diverse perspectives and potentially contribute to ongoing research projects.

Strategies for Staying Updated

• Develop Targeted Alerts:  Set up automatic notifications for new publications in relevant journals, databases, and author profiles.
• Attend Conferences and Workshops:  Participate in academic events to gain insights into ongoing research and network with experts.
• Utilize Literature Review Tools:  Leverage software like Mendeley or Zotero to efficiently manage your references and receive updates related to your research interests.
• Subscribe to Author Blogs and Newsletters:  Follow prominent researchers in your field to stay informed about their latest work and insights.
• Join Online Communities and Forums:  Engage in discussions with fellow researchers to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and learn about emerging trends.

Staying updated on the latest literature is not a one-time task; it’s an ongoing process. By actively engaging with new developments and incorporating them into your research, you can ensure your literature review remains relevant, impactful, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in your field.

How does the literature review process contribute to the overall rigor and validity of academic research

The literature review process plays a crucial role in ensuring the  rigor and validity  of academic research in several key ways;

1. Establishing Context and Foundation:  A comprehensive literature review provides the context and theoretical foundation for your research. It demonstrates your understanding of the existing body of knowledge, relevant debates, and established methodologies. This ensures your research isn’t conducted in isolation and builds upon existing knowledge, contributing to the overall understanding of your field.

2. Preventing Duplication and Redundancy:  By thoroughly exploring past research, you can identify areas where research is already saturated and avoid replicating what has already been done. This prevents unnecessary duplication of effort and ensures your research focuses on addressing genuine gaps in knowledge.

3. Justifying Your Research Question and Methodology:  The literature review allows you to justify the significance of your research question and the chosen methodology. You can demonstrate how your study addresses limitations in previous research, offers unique insights, or employs innovative approaches, ultimately contributing to the advancement of knowledge.

4. Identifying Potential Biases and Limitations:  A critical analysis of existing research helps you identify potential biases and limitations in previous studies. By acknowledging these limitations and outlining strategies to address them in your own research, you demonstrate awareness and enhance the trustworthiness of your findings.

5. Ensuring Transparency and Traceability:  The literature review showcases the sources and evidence upon which your research is built. This transparency allows other researchers to assess the validity of your arguments, replicate your findings, and build upon your work, contributing to the overall scientific process.

6. Building Credibility and Expertise:  A well-researched and well-presented literature review showcases your understanding of the field and your ability to critically evaluate existing knowledge. This establishes your credibility as a researcher and strengthens the impact of your findings.

7. Enhancing Argumentation and Communication:  Your knowledge gleaned from the literature review enriches your arguments by providing them with historical context, theoretical underpinnings, and comparisons to related work. This improves communication and ensures your research resonates with other scholars in the field.

8. Informing Data Analysis and Interpretation:  By understanding how past research has approached similar topics, you can develop a more informed approach to analyzing your own data and interpreting your findings. This helps you ensure your conclusions are well-grounded and supported by existing knowledge.

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• University of Oregon Libraries
• Research Guides

How to Write a Literature Review

• 4. Manage Your References
• Literature Reviews: A Recap
• Reading Journal Articles
• Does it Describe a Literature Review?
• 1. Identify the Question
• 2. Review Discipline Styles
• Searching Article Databases
• Finding Full-Text of an Article
• Citation Chaining
• When to Stop Searching

Manage your references

Why do i have to cite my sources, citation styles, major citation styles - official and credible guidance.

• 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate
• 6. Synthesize
• 7. Write a Literature Review

Citation Management Tools

Citation managers help you collect, organize, cite, and share research. Click on the links below for guidance on using these tools.

Learning Opportunities

For help learning these tools, contact an expert listed on the tool's guide or sign up for one of our workshops:

• Sign up for UO Libraries workshops here!

As p art of your lit review, you'll need to provide a list of references -- your professors want to know where  you found your information. 

Your professor will also require that you use a specific format ("style") for citing your references, such as one of these: 

• APA (American Psychological Association)
• Chicago Manual of Style
• MLA (Modern Language Association)

University Library provides an  online guide to help you cite your sources correctly   in multiple styles.

Citation styles

In academic writing, there are many different formats for citing the sources you use in your research. Here are a few of the most common, and their related disciplines.

Accessibility note: Below is a chart with two columns for format and discipline.

Note: Regardless of which format you use, you must include the same basic bibliographic information when citing a source.

Official Style Manuals

There are many different types of academic and professional writing styles. The four guidebooks below represent some of the major ones. Use these guides to learn how professional researchers and writers prepare their manuscripts for publication or sharing.

Online Style Resources

Although these resources are not official, they are still credible and very useful! If one of these websites doesn't answer your question, check out the official style guide or contact a librarian for help!

UO Research Guides

These helpful guided from UO Libraries provide information on various citation styles.

• Citation and Plagiarism by Genifer Snipes Last Updated Mar 29, 2024 1701 views this year
• Introductory How-To Tutorials for MLA and APA Styles from UO Libraries by Genifer Snipes Last Updated Jul 17, 2023 34 views this year
• << Previous: When to Stop Searching
• Next: 5. Critically Analyze and Evaluate >>
• Last Updated: Jan 10, 2024 4:46 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/litreview

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Researching and writing for Economics students

4 literature review and citations/references.

Figure 4.1: Literature reviews and references

Your may have done a literature survey as part of your proposal. This will be incorporated into your dissertation, not left as separate stand-alone. Most economics papers include a literature review section, which may be a separate section, or incorporated into the paper’s introduction. (See organising for a standard format.)

Some disambiguation:

A ‘Literature survey’ paper: Some academic papers are called ‘literature surveys’. These try to summarise and discuss the existing work that has been done on a particular topic, and can be very useful. See, for example, works in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Economic Literature, the “Handbook of [XXX] Economics”

Many student projects and undergraduate dissertations are mainly literature surveys.

4.1 What is the point of a literature survey?

Your literature review should explain:

what has been done already to address your topic and related questions, putting your work in perspective, and

what techniques others have used, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how might they be relevant tools for your own analysis.

Figure 4.2: Take notes on this as you read, and write them up.

4.2 What previous work is relevant?

Focus on literature that is relevant to your topic only.

But do not focus only on articles about your exact topic ! For example, if your paper is about the relative price of cars in the UK, you might cite papers (i) about the global automobile market, (ii) about the theory and evidence on competition in markets with similar features and (iii) using econometric techniques such as “hedonic regression” to estimate “price premia” in other markets and in other countries.

Consider: If you were Colchester a doctor and wanted to know whether a medicine would be effective for your patients, would you only consider medical studies that ran tests on Colchester residents, or would you consider more general national and international investigations?

4.3 What are “good” economics journal articles?

You should aim to read and cite peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals. (Journals in other fields such as Finance, Marketing and Political Science may also be useful.) These papers have a certain credibility as they have been checked by several referees and one or more editors before being published. (In fact, the publication process in Economics is extremely lengthy and difficult.)

Which journals are “reputable”? Economists spend a lot of time thinking about how to rank and compare journals (there are so many papers written about this topic that they someone could start a “Journal of Ranking Economics Journals”. For example, “ REPEC ” has one ranking, and SCIMAGO/SCOPUS has another one. You may want to focus on journals ranked in the top 100 or top 200 of these rankings. If you find it very interesting and relevant paper published somewhere that is ranked below this, is okay to cite it, but you may want to be a bit more skeptical of its findings.

Any journal you find on JSTOR is respectable, and if you look in the back of your textbooks, there will be references to articles in journals, most of which are decent.

You may also find unpublished “working papers”; these may also be useful as references. However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of these, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing.

Unpublished “working papers”

You may also find unpublished “working papers” or ‘mimeos’; these may also be useful as references. In fact, the publication process in Economics is so slow (six years from first working paper to publication is not uncommon) that not consulting working papers often means not being current.

However, it is more difficult to evaluate the credibility of this ‘grey literature’, as they have not been through a process of peer review. However, if the author has published well and has a good reputation, it might be more likely that these are worth reading and citing. Some working paper series are vetted, such as NBER; in terms of credibility, these might be seen as something in between a working paper and a publication.

Which of the following are “peer-reviewed articles in reputable economics journals”? Which of the following may be appropriate to cite in your literature review and in your final project? 8

Klein, G, J. (2011) “Cartel Destabilization and Leniency Programs – Empirical Evidence.” ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 10-107

Spencer, B. and Brander, J.A. (1983) “International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy”, Review of Economic Studies Vol. 50, 707-722

Troisi, Jordan D., Andrew N. Christopher, and Pam Marek. “Materialism and money spending disposition as predictors of economic and personality variables.” North American Journal of Psychology 8.3 (2006): 421.

The Economist,. ‘Good, Bad And Ugly’. Web. 11 Apr. 2015. [accessed on…]

Mecaj, Arjola, and María Isabel González Bravo. “CSR Actions and Financial Distress: Do Firms Change Their CSR Behavior When Signals of Financial Distress Are Identified?.” Modern Economy 2014 (2014).

Universities, U. K. “Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy.” London Universities UK (2010).

4.4 How to find and access articles

You should be able to find and access all the relevant articles online. Leafing through bound volumes and photocopying should not be neededs. (Having been a student in the late 90’s and 2000’s, I wish I could get those hours back.)

Figure 4.3: The old way!

Good online tools include Jstor (jstor.org) and Google Scholar (scholar.google.co.uk). Your university should have access to Jstor, and Google is accessible to all (although the linked articles may require special access). You will usually have the ‘most access’ when logged into your university or library computing system.If you cannot access a paper, you may want to consult a reference librarian.

It is also ok, if you cannot access the journal article itself, to use the last working paper version (on Google scholar find this in the tab that says “all X versions”, where X is some number, and look for a PDF). However, authors do not always put up the most polished versions, although they should do to promote open-access. As a very last resort, you can e-mail the author and ask him or her to send you the paper.

When looking for references, try to find ones published in respected refereed economics journals (see above ).

4.5 Good starting points: Survey article, course notes, and textbooks

A “survey article” is a good place to start; this is a paper that is largely a categorization and discussion of previous work on a particular topic. You can often find such papers in journals such as

• the Journal of Economic Perspectives,
• the Journal of Economic Surveys,
• and the Journal of Economic Literature.

These will be useful as a “catalog” of papers to read and considers citing. They are also typically very readable and offer a decent introduction to the issue or the field.

It is also helpful to consult module (course) notes and syllabi from the relevant field. Do not only limit yourself to the ones at your own university; many of universities make their course materials publicly accessible online. These will not only typically contain reading lists with well-respected and useful references, they may also contain slides and other material that will help you better understand your topic and the relevant issues.

However, be careful not to take material from course notes without properly citing it. (Better yet, try to find the original paper that the course notes are referring to.)

Textbooks serve as another extremely useful jumping off point. Look through your own textbooks and other textbooks in the right fields. Textbooks draw from, and cite a range of relevant articles and papers. (You may also want to go back to textbooks when you are finding the articles you are reading too difficult. Textbooks may present a simpler version of the material presented in an article, and explain the concepts better.)

4.6 Backwards and forwards with references

When you find a useful paper, look for its “family.” You may want to go back to earlier, more fundamental references, by looking at the articles that this paper cited. See what is listed as “keywords” (these are usually given at the top of the paper), and “JEL codes”. Check what papers this paper cites, and check what other papers cited this paper. On Google scholar you can follow this with a link “Cited by…” below the listed article. “Related articles” is also a useful link.

4.7 Citations

Keep track of all references and citations

You may find it helpful to use software to help you manage your citations

A storage “database” of citations (e.g., Jabref, Zotero, Endnote, Mendeley); these interface well with Google Scholar and Jstor

An automatic “insert citation” and “insert bibliography” in your word processing software

Use a tool like Endnote to manage and insert the bibliographies, or use a bibliography manager software such as Zotero or Jabref,

Further discussion: Citation management tools

List of works cited

Put your list of references in alphabetical order by author’s last name (surname).

Include all articles and works that you cite in your paper; do not include any that you don’t cite.

Avoiding plagiarism and academic offenses**

Here is a definition of plagiarism

The main point is that you need to cite everything that is not your own work. Furthermore, be clear to distinguish what is your own work and your own language and what is from somewhere/someone else.

Why cite? Not just to give credit to others but to make it clear that the remaining uncited content is your own.

Here are some basic rules:

(Rephrased from University of Essex material, as seen in Department of Economics, EC100 Economics for Business Handbook 2017-18, https://www1.essex.ac.uk/economics/documents/EC100-Booklet_2017.pdf accessed on 20 July 2019, pp. 15-16)

Do not submit anything that is not your own work.

Never copy from friends.

Do not copy your own work or previously submitted work. (Caveat: If you are submitting a draft or a ‘literature review and project plan’ at an earlier stage, this can be incorporated into your final submission.

Don’t copy text directly into your work, unless:

• you put all passages in quotation marks: beginning with ’ and ending with ’, or clearly offset from the main text
• you cite the source of this text.

It is not sufficient merely to add a citation for the source of copied material following the copied material (typically the end of a paragraph). You must include the copied material in quotation marks. … Ignorance … is no defence.’ (ibid, pp. 15 )

(‘Ibid’ means ‘same as the previous citation’.)

Your university may use sophisticated plagiarism-detection software. Markers may also report if the paper looks suspect

Before final submission, they may ask you to go over your draft and sign that you understand the contents and you have demonstrated that the work is your own.

Not being in touch with your supervisor may put you under suspicion.

Your university may give a Viva Voce oral exam if your work is under suspicion. It is a cool-sounding word but probably something you want to avoid.

Your university may store your work in its our database, and can pursue disciplinary action, even after you have graduated.

Penalties may be severe, including failure with no opportunity to retake the module (course). You may even risk your degree!

Comprehension questions; answers in footnotes

True or false: “If you do not directly quote a paper you do not need to cite it” 9

You should read and cite a paper (choose all that are correct)… 10

• If it motivates ‘why your question is interesting’ and how it can be modeled economically
• Only if it asks the same question as your paper
• Only if it is dealing with the same country/industry/etc as you are addressing
• If it has any connection to your topic, question, or related matters
• If it answers a similar question as your paper
• If it uses and discusses techniques that inform those you are using

4.8 How to write about previous authors’ analysis and findings

Use the right terminology.

“Johnson et al. (2000) provide an analytical framework that sheds substantial doubt on that belief. When trying to obtain a correlation between institutional efficiency and wealth per capita, they are left with largely inconclusive results.”

They are not trying to “obtain a correlation”; they are trying to measure the relationship and test hypotheses.

“Findings”: Critically examine sources

Don’t take everything that is in print (or written online) as gospel truth. Be skeptical and carefully evaluate the arguments and evidence presented. Try to really survey what has been written, to consider the range of opinions and the preponderance of the evidence. You also need to be careful to distinguish between “real research” and propaganda or press releases.

The returns to higher education in Atlantis are extremely high. For the majority of Atlanian students a university degree has increased their lifetime income by over 50%, as reported in the “Benefits of Higher Education” report put out by the Association of Atlantian Universities (2016).

But don’t be harsh without explanation:

Smith (2014) found a return to education in Atlantis exceeding 50%. This result is unlikely to be true because the study was not a very good one.

“Findings:” “They Proved”

A theoretical economic model can not really prove anything about the real world; they typically rely on strong simplifying assumptions.

Through their economic model, they prove that as long as elites have incentives to invest in de facto power, through lobbying or corruption for example, they will invest as much as possible in order to gain favourable conditions in the future for their businesses.

In their two period model, which assumes \[details of key assumptions here\] , they find that when an elite Agent has an incentive to invest in de facto power, he invests a strictly positive amount, up to the point where marginal benefit equals marginal cost”

Empirical work does not “prove” anything (nor does it claim to).

It relies on statistical inference under specific assumptions, and an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.

“As Smith et al (1999) proved using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange, equity prices always increase in response to reductions in corporate tax rates.”

“Smith et al (199) estimated a VAR regression for a dynamic CAP model using data from the 1910-1920 Scandanavian stock exchange. They found a strongly statistically significant negative coefficient on corporate tax rates. This suggests that such taxes may have a negative effect on publicly traded securities. However, as their data was from a limited period with several simultaneous changes in policy, and their results are not robust to \[something here\] , further evidence is needed on this question.”

Use the language of classical 11 statistics:

Hypothesis testing, statistical significance, robustness checks, magnitudes of effects, confidence intervals.

Note that generalisation outside the data depends on an intuitive sense that evidence from one situation is likely to apply to other situations.

“Findings”: How do you (or the cited paper) claim to identify a causal relationship?

This policy was explained by Smith and Johnson (2002) in their research on subsidies and redistribution in higher education. Their results showed that people with higher degree have higher salaries and so pay higher taxes. Thus subsidizing higher education leads to a large social gain.

The results the student discusses seem to show an association between higher degrees and higher salaries. The student seems to imply that the education itself led to higher salaries. This has not been shown by the cited paper. Perhaps people who were able to get into higher education would earn higher salaries anyway. There are ways economists used to try to identify a “causal effect” (by the way, this widely used term is redundant as all effects must have a cause), but a mere association between two variables is not enough

As inflation was systematically lower during periods of recession, we see that too low a level of inflation increases unemployment.

Economists have long debated the nature of this “Phillips curve” relationship. There is much work trying to determine whether the association (to the extent it exists) is a causal one. We could not rule out reverse causality, or third factor that might cause changes in both variables.

4.9 …Stating empirical results

Don’t write: “I accept the null hypothesis.”

Do write: “The results fail to reject the null hypothesis, in spite of a large sample size and an estimate with small standard errors” (if this is the case)

Note: The question of what to infer from acceptance/rejection of null hypotheses is a complex difficult one in Classical (as opposed to Bayesian) statistics. This difficulty is in part philosophical: classical hypothesis testing is deductive , while inference is necessarily inductive.

4.10 What to report

You need to read this paper more clearly; it is not clear what they conclude nor what their evidence is.

4.11 Organising your literature review

A common marking comment:

These papers seem to be discussed in random order – you need some structure organising these papers thematically, by finding, by technique, or chronologically perhaps.

How should you organise it? In what order?

Thematically (usually better)

By method, by theoretical framework, by results or assumptions, by field

Chronologically (perhaps within themes)

Exercise: Compare how the literature review section is organized in papers you are reading.

Figure 4.4: Organising a set of references

Q: What sort of structure am I using in the above outline?

It may also be helpful to make a ‘table’ of the relevant literature, as in the figure below. This will help you get a sense of the methods and results, and how the papers relate, and how to assess the evidence. You may end up putting this in the actual paper.

Figure 4.5: Organisational table from Reinstein and Riener, 2012b

4.12 What if you have trouble reading and understanding a paper?

Consult a survey paper, textbook, or lecture notes that discuss this paper and this topic

Try to find an easier related paper

Ask your supervisor for help; if he or she can

Try to understand what you can; do not try to “fake it”

4.13 Some literature survey do’s and don’ts

Do not cite irrelevant literature.

Do not merely list all the papers you could find.

Discuss them, and their relevance to your paper.

What are their strengths and weaknesses? What techniques do they use, and what assumptions do they rely on? How do they relate to each other?

Use correct citation formats.

Try to find original sources (don’t just cite a web link).

Don’t just cut and paste from other sources. And make sure to attribute every source and every quote. Be clear: which part of your paper is your own work and what is cited from others? The penalties for plagiarism can be severe!

• Critically examine the sources, arguments, and methods

4.14 Comprehension questions: literature review

How to discuss empirical results: “Causal” estimation, e.g., with Instrumental Variables

Which is the best way to state it? 12

“As I prove in table 2, more lawyers lead to slower growth (as demonstrated by the regression analysis evidence).”

“Table 2 provides evidence that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population leads to slower growth.”

3.“Table 2 shows that a high share of lawyers in a city’s population is correlated with slower growth.”

Which is better? 13

• “However, when a set of observable determinants of city growth (such as Census Region growth) are accounted for, the estimate of this effect becomes less precise.”
• “In the correct regression I control for all determinants of city growth and find that there is no effect of lawyers on growth”

Stating empirical results: descriptive

“Using the US data from 1850-1950, I find that inflation is lower during periods of recession. This is statistically significant in a t-test [or whatever test] at the 99% level, and the difference is economically meaningful. This is consistent with the theory of …, which predicts that lower inflation increases unemployment. However, other explanations are possible, including reverse causality, and unmeasured covarying lags and trends.”

“I find a significantly lower level of inflation during periods of recession, and the difference is economically meaningful. This relationship is statistically significant and the data is accurately measured. Thus I find that inflation increases unemployment.”

Some tips on writing a good paper– relevant to literature reviews

• Answer the question
• Provide clear structure and signposting
• Demonstrate an ability for critical analysis
• Refer to your sources
• Produce a coherent, clear argument
• Take time to proofread for style and expresssion
• Source “Assignment Writing Skills EBS 3rd year 2012”"

Answer: only b is a ‘peer reviewed article in a reputable economics journal’. All of these might be useful to cite, however. ↩

False. You need to cite any content and ideas that are not your own. ↩

Answers: 1, 5, and 6. Note that 2 and 3 are too narrow criteria, and 4 is too broad. ↩

or Bayesian if you like ↩

The second one; if this is really causal evidence. ↩

The first one. There is no ‘correct regression’. It is also not really correct in classical statistics to ‘find no effect’. ↩

Why is it important to do a literature review in research?

The importance of scientific communication in the healthcare industry

The Importance and Role of Biostatistics in Clinical Research

 “A substantive, thorough, sophisticated literature review is a precondition for doing substantive, thorough, sophisticated research”. Boote and Baile 2005

Authors of manuscripts treat writing a literature review as a routine work or a mere formality. But a seasoned one knows the purpose and importance of a well-written literature review.  Since it is one of the basic needs for researches at any level, they have to be done vigilantly. Only then the reader will know that the basics of research have not been neglected.

The aim of any literature review is to summarize and synthesize the arguments and ideas of existing knowledge in a particular field without adding any new contributions.   Being built on existing knowledge they help the researcher to even turn the wheels of the topic of research.  It is possible only with profound knowledge of what is wrong in the existing findings in detail to overpower them.  For other researches, the literature review gives the direction to be headed for its success. 

The common perception of literature review and reality:

As per the common belief, literature reviews are only a summary of the sources related to the research. And many authors of scientific manuscripts believe that they are only surveys of what are the researches are done on the chosen topic.  But on the contrary, it uses published information from pertinent and relevant sources like

• Scholarly books
• Scientific papers
• Latest studies in the field
• Established school of thoughts
• Relevant articles from renowned scientific journals

and many more for a field of study or theory or a particular problem to do the following:

• Summarize into a brief account of all information
• Synthesize the information by restructuring and reorganizing
• Critical evaluation of a concept or a school of thought or ideas
• Familiarize the authors to the extent of knowledge in the particular field
• Encapsulate
• Compare & contrast

By doing the above on the relevant information, it provides the reader of the scientific manuscript with the following for a better understanding of it:

• It establishes the authors’  in-depth understanding and knowledge of their field subject
• It gives the background of the research
• Portrays the scientific manuscript plan of examining the research result
• Illuminates on how the knowledge has changed within the field
• Highlights what has already been done in a particular field
• Information of the generally accepted facts, emerging and current state of the topic of research
• Identifies the research gap that is still unexplored or under-researched fields
• Demonstrates how the research fits within a larger field of study
• Provides an overview of the sources explored during the research of a particular topic

Importance of literature review in research:

The importance of literature review in scientific manuscripts can be condensed into an analytical feature to enable the multifold reach of its significance.  It adds value to the legitimacy of the research in many ways:

• Provides the interpretation of existing literature in light of updated developments in the field to help in establishing the consistency in knowledge and relevancy of existing materials
• It helps in calculating the impact of the latest information in the field by mapping their progress of knowledge.
• It brings out the dialects of contradictions between various thoughts within the field to establish facts
• The research gaps scrutinized initially are further explored to establish the latest facts of theories to add value to the field
• Indicates the current research place in the schema of a particular field
• Provides information for relevancy and coherency to check the research
• Apart from elucidating the continuance of knowledge, it also points out areas that require further investigation and thus aid as a starting point of any future research
• Justifies the research and sets up the research question
• Sets up a theoretical framework comprising the concepts and theories of the research upon which its success can be judged
• Helps to adopt a more appropriate methodology for the research by examining the strengths and weaknesses of existing research in the same field
• Increases the significance of the results by comparing it with the existing literature
• Provides a point of reference by writing the findings in the scientific manuscript
• Helps to get the due credit from the audience for having done the fact-finding and fact-checking mission in the scientific manuscripts
• The more the reference of relevant sources of it could increase more of its trustworthiness with the readers
• Helps to prevent plagiarism by tailoring and uniquely tweaking the scientific manuscript not to repeat other’s original idea
• By preventing plagiarism , it saves the scientific manuscript from rejection and thus also saves a lot of time and money
• Helps to evaluate, condense and synthesize gist in the author’s own words to sharpen the research focus
• Helps to compare and contrast to  show the originality and uniqueness of the research than that of the existing other researches
• Rationalizes the need for conducting the particular research in a specified field
• Helps to collect data accurately for allowing any new methodology of research than the existing ones
• Enables the readers of the manuscript to answer the following questions of its readers for its better chances for publication
• What do the researchers know?
• What do they not know?
• Is the scientific manuscript reliable and trustworthy?
• What are the knowledge gaps of the researcher?

22. It helps the readers to identify the following for further reading of the scientific manuscript:

• What has been already established, discredited and accepted in the particular field of research
• Areas of controversy and conflicts among different schools of thought
• Unsolved problems and issues in the connected field of research
• The emerging trends and approaches
• How the research extends, builds upon and leaves behind from the previous research

A profound literature review with many relevant sources of reference will enhance the chances of the scientific manuscript publication in renowned and reputed scientific journals .

References:

http://www.math.montana.edu/jobo/phdprep/phd6.pdf

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The Importance of Literature Reviews in Dissertations

1. Introduction to Literature Reviews in Dissertations

A literature review is a fundamental component of a dissertation. It enables the researcher to survey existing research related to their chosen topic and outline the principles of that particular field from which further investigation can be based. Literature reviews should include an analysis, synthesis, summarization and interpretation of current knowledge on the subject being studied.

• Analysis : A critical appraisal or examination of another scholar’s work in order to evaluate its relevance for your own study needs.
• Synthesis : Combining multiple viewpoints into one cohesive narrative while considering what may be missing from the various sources.

The purpose of analyzing the relevant literature is twofold: firstly, it allows you to create your own original argument by understanding how previous researchers have contributed to this specific area; secondly, it helps you identify any shortcomings or gaps in existing studies – areas where new knowledge could potentially be created through further research. As such, writing a thorough and accurate literature review is essential for producing good quality dissertations.

2. Examining the Significance of Literature Reviews

Exploring the Purpose of Literature Reviews A literature review is an analysis and evaluation of existing research findings on a topic. It serves several purposes in research-oriented writing, including providing context for related work, summarizing prior studies to form a basis for new research and synthesizing results from multiple sources into one unified interpretation. Writing a thorough and comprehensive literature review takes effort but ultimately aids researchers in deepening their understanding of the subject matter.

Organizing Existing Knowledge: The main purpose of conducting a literature review is to bring order out chaos within already existing knowledge or information on the chosen topic. By doing this task methodically and conscientiously, it becomes easier to spot areas that need more attention or where further investigation might be necessary while also avoiding errors by not overlooking important works all too common when performing ad hoc searches. Additionally, since most reviews focus on synthesis rather than quantitative aggregation across numerous detailed reports, they provide insight into trends over time as well as what future directions should entail such as upcoming technologies and changes in best practices.

• Researched information must be effectively organized.
• “Gaps” can easily be identified.

3. Benefits and Challenges of Conducting a Literature Review

The literature review process has multiple advantages and challenges in the research realm. This section provides a reflection on some of those benefits and issues.

• Develops an overview of current scholarly knowledge; identifies relationships among different fields and topics, potential gaps in knowledge, emerging trends or controversies.

4. Best Practices for Formulating an Effective Literary Review Structure

When formulating an effective literary review structure, it is important to have a clear plan in mind. First and foremost, summarise the key texts that you will be engaging with; this serves as a starting point for writing your review. It is helpful to adhere to certain best practices when establishing a structured approach.

• Focus on relevant works: Narrow down the list of literature by selecting those materials directly related to your study’s research questions or objectives.
• Develop distinct sections: Divide up different strands of inquiry into separate subsections so that each discussion may stand alone in its own right without losing coherence within the broader argument.
• Be critical in assessments: Evaluate strengths and weaknesses from both primary sources as well as past studies which seek out ways they can inform additional scholarship going forward.

5. Strategies for Locating Relevant Sources for Your Literary Review

Identifying Relevant Sources

The first step of conducting an effective literature review is to identify sources that are highly relevant to the research topic. This can be done through a variety of strategies, such as:

• Exploring bibliographies provided in existing articles.
• Researching potential authors and their research topics via databases or search engines.

These two methods can often lead you to further related studies and additional authors who have conducted work on the same topic. For example, exploring a study’s reference page may direct you to similar works written by different authors which provide complementary information.

Verifying Source Reliability

Once some sources have been identified for use, another important step is verifying whether these are reliable sources for your particular project. It is essential when researching academic fields that all materials used have undergone rigorous peer-review processes and meet certain academic standards; this helps maintain trustworthiness in all areas of academia. In addition, it’s also important to consider how current any source material might be – timeliness matters depending on the field being researched! Some considerations while evaluating reliability include asking questions such as:

6. Acknowledging Sources within your literary review

When writing a literature review, it is important to remember and give due credit to all sources that you have used in the compilation of your work. It is especially crucial when you are citing published material by other authors as these documents are protected under copyright law. Therefore, one must be sure to include proper acknowledgement of every source utilized.

• Inclusion of accurate referencing not only protects against infringement but also adds credibility and authority to your review.
• Be mindful that some publications may require specific formatting for citations; therefore familiarize yourself with them before beginning the project or refer back if any doubt arises

The use of Citations:

A citation provides information regarding the source so readers can easily identify it within their library collection or online database search results. To cite a particular author’s publication accurately , follow this correct format : Name ( date) , title , place where it was published . For instance : Smith (1984), “A Study on Literary Themes,” New York: Penguin Books

7. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Completing a Thorough Literature Review

In conclusion, completing a thorough literature review is of paramount importance to any research endeavor. The primary aim of this type of review is to assess the existing studies related to the topic in order gain an understanding and identify knowledge gaps. As such, it provides new researchers with valuable insights including:

• Contextual information on how current theories are built.
• A better understanding of key terms and concepts.
• An assessment for potential methodological approaches.

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A Literature Review of Pandemics and Development: the Long-Term Perspective

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• Published: 27 January 2022
• Volume 6 , pages 183–212, ( 2022 )

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• Beniamino Callegari   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5513-7299 1 , 2 &
• Christophe Feder   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1239-513X 3 , 4  

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Pandemics have been a long-standing object of study by economists, albeit with declining interest, that is until COVID-19 arrived. We review current knowledge on the pandemics’ effects on long-term economic development, spanning economic and historical debates. We show that all economic inputs are potentially affected. Pandemics reduce the workforce and human capital, have mixed effects on investment and savings, but potentially positive consequences for innovation and knowledge development, depending on accompanying institutional change. In the absence of an innovative response supporting income redistribution, pandemics tend to increase income inequalities, worsening poverty traps and highlighting the distributional issues built into insurance-based health insurance systems. We find that the effects of pandemics are asymmetric over time, in space, and among sectors and households. Therefore, we suggest that the research focus on the theoretical plausibility and empirical significance of specific mechanisms should be complemented by meta-analytic efforts aimed at reconstructing the resulting complexity. Finally, we suggest that policymakers prioritize the development of organizational learning and innovative capabilities, focusing on the ability to adapt to emergencies rather than developing rigid protocols or mimicking solutions developed and implemented in different contexts.

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Introduction

As the COVID-19 emergency appears to slowly and unevenly recede in the wake of medical breakthroughs and the development of more effective prevention and treatment protocols, the question of the long-term impact of the pandemic grows more urgent. There is little doubt that this global health crisis found economists mostly unprepared, as the analysis of the pandemic’s effects has hardly found its way into the discipline’s most central publication avenues (Noy and Managi 2020 ). However, this does not mean that the economic analysis of pandemics is starting from scratch, as economists and economic historians have never ceased to expand our knowledge on the subject.

The connection between pandemics and economic theory has historically been so relevant that it has directly contributed to labeling economics as the ‘dismal science’. Cipolla ( 1974 ) illustrates how reflections on the plague and its consequences led many scholars to develop Malthusian ideas on the complex long-term relationships between population growth, economic growth, and diseases, well in advance of the Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus 1798 ). However, the Industrial Revolution and the concomitant development of medical knowledge led to a decreased incidence of catastrophic plagues in the West, and a corresponding decline in the interest in pandemics on the part of economists (Easterlin 1995 ). The demographic boom of the West and the visible lack of corresponding pestilence and famine further discredited Malthusian perspectives, leading to a disconnection between the demographic and economic disciplines. Furthermore, from 1900 to 2019, pandemics were either eclipsed by more disruptive events or had a relatively limited economic impact (Garrett 2008 ; Lee and McKibbin 2004 ; Noy and Managi 2020 ). Finally, the marginalist revolution greatly focused economists’ attention on purely economic elements, eliminating from the discipline those elements perceived as spurious, like the study of pandemics’ effects (Schumpeter 1954 ), relegating it to a debate of mainly historical interest.

The expansion of economic analysis beyond its traditional boundaries that has occurred in the last two decades has gradually re-included the consequences of pandemics within economic theory, although most contributions remain on the periphery of academic debate and are relatively hidden (Arora 2001 ; Dunn 2006 ; Weil 2014 ). As Noy and Managi ( 2020 ) observed, the inherently multidisciplinary nature of pandemics, combined with its poor fit with what are called “hard” methods, have both conspired to make the contribution made by economists to the analysis of pandemics modest. The efforts of economists have been greatly augmented by the continuous work done by economic historians to understand the impact of past pandemics on the long-term development of various socioeconomic systems. Yet, while the total contribution to the economic analysis of the long-term impact of pandemics is significant, it is scattered across different journals, disciplines, academic approaches, and debates, making a review work necessary in order for all these contributions to become accessible.

This paper reviews the long-term economic effects of pandemics, defined as health shocks arising from infectious diseases with global diffusion. Within the definition of long-term effects, we include both those mechanisms that are immediately present and persist for a significant amount of time and those effects that arise in the long term. Due to the focus of our analysis, transient short-term effects are not part of our study. To the best of our knowledge, few literature reviews have studied the connection between pandemics and economic development. Bleakley ( 2010 ) critically reviews how diseases, rather than pandemics specifically, affect human capital formation and income growth at the micro and macro levels. Costa ( 2015 ) describes how health improvements affect economic growth, with a specific focus on the US, concluding that improved health is not sufficient to foster growth. Finally, Boucekkine et al. ( 2008 ) formally analyze how and which growth models are better able to mathematically describe the epidemics’ effects. Moreover, some scholars have also reviewed the long-term economic effects of particular health shocks, like the preindustrial epidemics (Alfani 2021 ), Spanish flu (Beach et al. 2021 ), HIV (Gaffeo 2003 ; Zinyemba et al. 2020 ), and modern pandemics (Bloom et al. 2021 ). We differ from these works because we analyze the long-term impact of pandemics in general on economic development. A similar approach has been adopted by Gries and Naudé ( 2021 ) and Callegari and Feder ( 2021a ), but with an entrepreneurship and not a macroeconomic focus.

Our broad approach has led us to review a large number of studies in order to identify recurrent results across very different pandemic events. Pandemics could affect aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and productivity growth (Basco et al. 2021 ; Dieppe 2021 ; Guerrieri et al. 2020 ; Jinjarak et al. 2021 ; Rassy and Smith 2013 ; World Bank 2020 ). Recalling the Solovian framework, we divide the long-term pandemic economic effects into three categories: labor and human capital; investments and physical capital; and knowledge and innovation. We find that all productive inputs are affected in the long term by the pandemic. More specifically, labor and human capital are negatively affected directly by health shocks. However, the intensity of this effect is heterogeneous among countries, labor markets, and industries. Investments and physical capital are affected by pandemics through complex, interacting, and often contrasting mechanisms, leaving long-term effects ambiguous and usually marginal and non-linear. However, the asymmetric impact of pandemics on the capital market and household income leads to the poverty trap and highlights the weakness of the health insurance system in coping with these shocks. Finally, pandemics could positively affect innovations in public and private institutions and bring about relevant technological changes in industries. The scope and direction of these socioeconomic changes appear to mediate the long-term effects of pandemics, determining both their direction and scope. However, relevant and radical institutional changes are necessary if the impact of pandemics on development is to be positive. We therefore suggest that scholars should develop meta-analysis to understand the complex tapestry of long-term pandemic mechanisms. Many policy implications follow directly: an efficient public intervention must be characterized in the long term by flexibility, pro-market orientation, and design customization.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 explains the selection methodology used in the review. Sections 3 , 4 , and 5 describe, respectively, the long-term effects of pandemics on: labor and human capital; investment and physical capital; and knowledge and innovation. Section 6 critically discusses the survey and summarizes the main lessons drawn from the literature for researchers and policymakers. Section 7 concludes.

Methodology

This literature review aims to illustrate, compare, and discuss the mechanisms through which pandemics affect long-term economic development. To achieve this goal, we adopted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology (Moher et al. 2009 ). First, we defined a list of keywords that express the main aspects of the “pandemic” and “economic development” concepts. Second, we identified which data sets to search: JSTOR, IDEAS/RePEc, Google Scholar, and EconLit. We excluded working papers and unpublished articles from our search, to ensure that the mechanisms presented are accepted by the scientific community. Moreover, we restricted our focus to the fields of economics and economic history, to ensure the economic relevance of the mechanisms described. Finally, we excluded papers focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is too early for a comprehensive evaluation of its long-term effects. Applying these criteria, we obtained a first sample of more than 4800 potential articles. Important contributions were not missed due to excessively strict methodological adherence, we also parsed the references lists of the most influential contributions within our initial corpus, identifying in this way 178 additional relevant manuscripts to potentially include in our review.

From this corpus of potential articles, we operated a further selection by analyzing their abstracts and, in uncertain cases, by searching the main body of the paper concerned for evidence of relevant discourse, thereby identifying 805 potential contributions. We then proceeded to evaluate the selected articles for inclusion according to their relevance to our research topic and their relative originality, evaluated in terms of the mechanisms analyzed. We then proceeded to summarize the resulting papers according to their research questions and aims, their theoretical references, their methodology, and their results, focusing on the featured economic mechanisms, in order to identify the structure of our corpus in terms of the main debates, the empirical object of study, the methods applied, and the theoretical foundations. In this way, after eliminating redundant contributions, we selected 88 articles, each describing specific mechanisms through which pandemics may affect the economic system in the long term. Finally, we identified a criterion to organize the resulting mechanisms, inspired by the well-known Solovian model of long-term growth, dividing them into the following three broad categories: labor, capital, and innovation.

We then identified a corpus of high-quality contributions, each offering a specific contribution to the academic debate in terms of one or more relevant mechanisms, supported by either theoretical or empirical arguments. Figure  1 summarizes the main steps of the selection process by using a PRISMA diagram.

The PRISMA process

Labor and Human Capital

The most intuitive and direct effect of pandemics is the adverse shock to the population and the labor market. Delfino and Simmons ( 2005 ) propose a Lotka-Volterra model showing that a negative demographic effect could become persistent if the pandemic is not eradicated. The magnitude of this effect is, however, mediated by contextual factors. Alfani ( 2013 ) shows that, in southern Europe, the plagues of the XVII century had higher mortality and territorial pervasiveness compared with those affecting northern Europe in the same period and the southern Europe plagues of the previous century. Furthermore, the rate of mortality and territorial pervasiveness was heterogeneous among Italian regions and cities. Using a long-term perspective, Rodríguez-Caballero and Vera-Valdés ( 2020 ) find that pandemics reduced the unemployment rate persistently from 1854 to 2016 in Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. They also observe that, in the UK, pandemics reduced the GDP per capita over 1270–2019, and that this effect was increasingly persistent in the last 300 years. Fiaschi and Fioroni ( 2019 ) have built a model which shows how pandemics’ impact on growth trajectories is mediated by the production structure and the mortality reduction brought by technological progress. Bloom and Sachs ( 1998 ) observe that the mortality and morbidity of pandemics are highest in tropical regions. They explain that differences in climate and nature, together with anthropomorphic factors, affect the spread of the virus over the population. However, this direct effect on labor and population could decline in the long term.

The long-term effects of pandemics on the labor supply also depend on their impact on fertility. By analyzing 15 relevant infectious diseases from 75 countries between 1940 and 2000, Acemoglu and Johnson ( 2007 ) find that pandemics reduce demographic equilibria in the long term through their impact on fertility rates. Birth rates are influenced directly, as the pandemic reduces the number of fertile women, and indirectly, as future life expectancy influences decisions to have children in the long term. They empirically confirm that the higher mortality of those affected by infectious diseases sharply reduces births and slightly reduces the share of the young in the population because of their lower life expectancy. Lorentzen et al. ( 2008 ) show that a pandemic affects not only fertility, i.e. the number of births, but also the net fertility, i.e. the fertility of the surviving population. Parents care about the number of surviving newborns: higher infant mortality increases births. Moreover, parents invest time and money in their children, who become irreplaceable when they grow up. Therefore, higher adult mortality increases fertility, even more than infant mortality. Finally, given the family budget constraint, parents must choose between the quantity and quality of their children. Consequently, the uncertainty of the pandemic reduces the investment rent in human capital, leading parents to rationally prefer quantity to quality. The authors find empirical support for these hypotheses, observing that the probability of contracting malaria negatively affects adult and infant life expectancy, and that both expectations improve the fertility rate.

Fertility mechanisms interact with human capital accumulation. Lagerlöf ( 2003 ) describes an overlapping-generations model where adults confront the children’s quality-quantity trade-off. Infant survival is negatively affected by both the chance of random pandemics and population density, which both increase the risk of contagion, but is positively affected by human capital (higher medical knowledge), which is cumulative in time and positively affected by population density (knowledge spillovers). They find that, when pandemics are frequent, where the decision to have children is concerned, parents prefer quantity to quality; human capital does not increase; and population density remains low. When sufficient human capital has accumulated, however, the growth path of the economy is no longer affected by new pandemic waves. Consequently, only if, by chance, pandemics do not strike for a sufficiently long time, will parents then increase their investments in future generations, thus reaching the human capital threshold necessary to achieve robust growth trajectories. Gori et al. ( 2020 ) integrate all previously described mechanisms in a three-stage overlapping-generations growth model, including adolescent, adult, and elderly agents. In this model, only the elderly are sexually inactive and are, therefore, not exposed to HIV infection. The probability of dying from the pandemic is negatively associated with human capital endowment and positively associated with the number of virus-spreaders. The pandemic increases both infant and adult mortality. Adult mortality reduces both labor supply and life expectancy. If life expectancy is reduced below a certain threshold level, parents prefer to have more children; otherwise, they prefer to invest in human capital. Parameterizing the model for the Sub-Saharan African countries, Gori et al. ( 2020 ) find that HIV reduces labor supply and human capital but increases fertility. Cervellati and Sunde ( 2015 ) model an economy where parents confront the children’s quality-quantity trade-off, given the child mortality and the inborn ability of the offspring. Also in this model, higher human capital leads to an improvement in both medical care and adult life expectancy: intensive economic growth follows an initial quasi-stagnation. Cervellati and Sunde ( 2015 ) observe, like Lorentzen et al. ( 2008 ), that adult mortality and human capital affect the economic dynamics more than fertility and child mortality. Cervellati and Sunde ( 2011 ) combine Lorentzen et al. ( 2008 )‘s life expectancy effects on mortality and fertility with the Acemoglu and Johnson ( 2007 )‘s model and find non-monotonic patterns of demographic growth. Before the demographic transition, more newborns could compensate for higher mortality, leaving the overall demographic effect ambiguous; after the demographic transition, parents prefer quality over quantity in regard to children, making pandemic demographic effects definitively negative in the long term.

A pandemic’s negative demographic impact reduces the number of available workers. However, its long-term impact is mixed. Gori et al. ( 2020 ) and Dauda ( 2019 ) provide a comprehensive literature review of the complex link between HIV and growth. They conclude that, while strong evidence exists for a negative link at the micro level, the empirical support for the macro effects is weaker. Keogh-Brown et al. ( 2010 ) find four ways in which the pandemic can affect the work supply. Death and infection of workers result in a temporary reduction of the workforce, partially persistent in the long term. However, they observe that these effects could be mitigated by migration (see also Alfani 2013 ), labor market inefficiencies (see also Bloom and Mahal 1997 ), and inventories. Using a structural econometric model of the UK to estimate the economic effects of a modern pandemic, they conclude that it would reduce production and increase firms’ costs, leading to the emergence of inflation in the long term. Voigtländer and Voth ( 2013 ) describe a model where pandemics reduce population but increase labor in the manufacturing sectors. Since the land supply remains constant, labor productivity increases, and therefore survivors’ wages are higher than they would be without the pandemic in the long term. If the welfare increase is sufficiently high, the demand for manufactured goods increases trade and population density. Moreover, manufactured goods are easily taxable, thus enabling the financing of more wars. All these mechanisms increase the transmission of disease, leading to long-term demographic stagnation. Using data on the Black Death, the calibrated model correctly approximates the growth of both the European urbanization and per capita GDP from 1000 to 1700.

Historical research provides further support for the hypothesis. Herlihy ( 1997 ) confirms that wages and the demand for manufactured goods increased after the Plague; however, he observes higher lethality for adults than for both the young and the elderly. The Black Death first reduced the number of available workers and the length of their productive life. Additionally, the Plague took away both the skill and experience of previous workers and the parent’s investment in the education of their children. Moreover, high turnover increased labor demand, further reducing the productivity of new workers in the long term. Low labor supply increased wages, as land rents decreased. Finally, consumption grew quantitatively, shifting qualitatively towards higher-quality goods, leading to the emergence of a positive long-term impact on the real wages and welfare of the survivors. Pamuk ( 2007 ) supports all Herlihy ( 1997 )‘s results. Moreover, he finds that the great difference in economic growth between North and South Europe, which is observed only some centuries later, originates from the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Indeed, if at first the Plague increased wages across Europe, afterwards, when the population began to grow again, the real wages remained persistently higher in North Europe. The higher flexibility of institutions and guilds allowed a better economic and social response to the Black Death in the North, for example by obtaining lease contracts more advantageous for farmers, or making it easier for women to enter the labor market, and then structurally and radically changing the fertility rate and demographic trends in those countries. Alfani and Percoco ( 2019 ) produce empirical evidence that the plagues that infested Italy in the XVII century also led to long-term reductions in real wages. Indeed, although the population remained below pre-plague levels for more than two centuries, the reduction of skills (as well as of capital and technologies) was particularly large for various reasons. First, these plagues were particularly severe compared with the outbreaks in other European countries. Second, these plagues hit all population strata equally, including the poor, nobles, and bourgeois alike. Moreover, the demographic impact was not compensated by migration flows. Finally, the destruction of human capital reduced the competitiveness of the Italian economy.

Economists disagree on the intensity of the long-term effect of pandemics on the accumulation of human capital. Bleakley ( 2010 ) shows that the effect of the pandemic on schooling is uncertain due to the simultaneous decrease in both benefits (following lessons is more difficult) and opportunity costs (labor productivity is lower). Moreover, he observes that the pandemic could already have negative effects on the intellectual development of the child during gestation. Almond ( 2006 ) supports this argument using 1960–80 decennial microdata to analyze the long-term effects on those US children who were conceived during the Spanish flu. He observes that, if the mother was infected during pregnancy, then her offspring had lower educational attainment and a higher probability of being physically disabled. Both factors reduce their future wages and then increase their participation in illegal activities and, more generally, harm their socioeconomic status 40, 50, and 60 years after the pandemic. Parman ( 2015 ) resizes the effect, affirming that in the US the Spanish flu did not affect human capital in aggregate because parents redirected their investments towards older siblings. Meyers and Thomasson ( 2021 ) show that in 1916 the negative effect of polio on human capital differed between the US states and also depended on the age of students and the family income. However, the effect is usually nonlinear on age and more damaging to the richest because of the specific characteristics of polio.

The relationship between pandemics and human capital accumulation has been studied not only in the US. Odugbesan and Rjoub ( 2019 ) show that, for 26 sub-Saharan African countries from 1990 to 2016, the link between a pandemic and human capital is negative and bidirectional due to persistent short-term effects. Using two Tanzanian databases, Wobst and Arndt ( 2004 ) show that the HIV pandemic has decreased human capital (and then wages and income per capita) in at least four ways. First, the pandemic has directly and persistently reduced labor supply and skills availability. Second, the number of teachers has also decreased, worsening the quality of the process of accumulation of human capital. Third, the lower labor supply has increased the demand for new workers, raising the opportunity cost of education for the young, thus reducing the need for human capital investments. Finally, the pandemic has also reduced the long-term demand for education through an increase in the number of orphans. Novella ( 2018 ) confirms the last link using a Zimbabwean survey for 2007–8. This revealed that orphans leave (secondary) school early and hence enter the labor market early compared with non-orphans. The worst effects emerge when both parents are dead or when the household is blended, i.e., when orphans and non-orphans live together. He also observes that this lower household income after a parent’s death only partially explains the lower investment in the orphans’ human capital. Evans and Miguel ( 2007 ) extend previous results for Kenya. Analyzing an extensive database of over 20,000 children, they observe that not only are orphans more likely to quit primary school, but the probability is higher in those cases where the mother dies and/or their academic performance was already weak. Therefore, they conclude that the inability to pay school fees and the need to find work seem less significant in the long term than the lack of emotional support and the presence of psychological trauma. Fortson ( 2011 ) models the schooling decision that maximizes the expected present value of lifetime utility, considering that HIV reduces its discount rate. He uses data of 15–49-year-olds covering the birth cohorts 1952–91 in 15 sub-Saharan African countries in order to confirm that HIV reduces longevity and human capital investments persistently in the long term. Moreover, the author suggests that both orphans and non-orphans are affected by pandemics, and that decreased schooling provision does not play a key role. Many scholars have analyzed the effects of HIV on educational achievements. Bell and Gersbach ( 2009 ) confirm all previous results by using an overlapping-generations model where both parents and children decide how much to invest in human capital. Moreover, they observe that (i) selective health and educational policies are more effective than comprehensive ones; and (ii) simultaneous health and educational policies are more (less) efficient than sequential ones if disease mortality is above (below) a threshold level.

Young ( 2005 ) combines two fertility effects with the orphan effect. First, if the virus is sexually transmitted, e.g. by HIV infection, then unprotected sexual activities and births are reduced. Second, the labor supply contraction, induced by the pandemic, improves wages and then reduces the mothers’ fertility. Third, lack of parental guidance reduces the human capital of orphans. These emerging long-term effects are mixed. Calibrating the model with South African microdata, he finds that: the female labor supply is more elastic than the male labor supply; fertility effects always prevail in the long term despite pessimistic assumptions; and per capita income tends to increase. Some scholars find that, in addition to human capital, pandemics depress other types of intangible capital. Aassve et al. ( 2021 ) show that the Spanish flu decreased social capital for many generations in the US. They use a long-term social trust survey and discover that: (i) the immigrants born after the Spanish flu and their heirs have lower social trust than those born before; and (ii) the effect is higher for those from countries with less uncensored information on pandemic effects. Using a behavioral experiment in Uganda, McCannon and Rodriguez ( 2019 ) find that grown-up orphans tend to have lower social capital. The probability of prosocial behavior is lower because orphans are more pessimistic about the community’s social contributions. McDonald and Roberts ( 2006 ) analyze data for 112 countries from 1960 to 1998 to determine how much HIV and malaria affect health capital and, consequently, income per capita growth in the long term. They observe that the degree of HIV prevalence in a country negatively affects health capital directly and economic growth indirectly. Moreover, they observe that this mechanism is significant in Africa, through both HIV and malaria, and in Latin America, only through HIV, but not in OECD and Asian Countries. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, Odugbesan and Rjoub ( 2019 ) confirm that income plays a key role in explaining the long-term effects of a pandemic. However, the direction of their results is reversed: the bidirectional link between a pandemic and human capital for upper-middle-, low-middle-, and low-income countries is, respectively, negative, positive, and insignificant.

Finally, the majority of effects described in this section are generally more severe in low-income countries. Here, reduced access to medical care, undernourishment, and the presence of other diseases could induce a poverty trap (Beach et al. 2021 ; Bloom et al. 2021 ; Lorentzen et al. 2008 ). A Malthusian equilibrium with low income, underinvestment in schooling and health, and high fertility emerge for tuberculosis (Delfino and Simmons 2005 ) but only partially for malaria (Bloom and Sachs 1998 ; Gallup and Sachs 2001 ). Moreover, the poverty trap is unclear for HIV, where both positive and negative pandemic effects on income distribution could emerge (Bloom and Mahal 1997 ; Bloom and Sachs 1998 ; Mahal 2004 ). Alfani ( 2021 ) suggests that high-mortality pandemics, like the plague, could reduce poverty by either exterminating the poor or redistributing income to the poor. Vice versa, Karlsson et al. ( 2014 ) suggest that low-mortality pandemics, like the Spanish flu, increase poverty due to pandemic-induced unemployment, inability to work for long periods, and general loss of income. As these effects are particularly severe and persistent for poor households, pandemics could aggravate inequality. Therefore, the long-term effects of pandemics on income distribution appear to depend on the medical profile of the disease.

Investments and Physical Capital

While pandemics affect the long-term dynamics of labor supply and human capital also through durable short-term mechanisms, their impact on capital and savings arise in the long term specifically. Acemoglu and Johnson ( 2007 ) argue that, since land and physical capital are not affected in the short term, the lower levels of labor supply and human capital reduce GDP but have an unclear effect on per capita income. Since pandemics reduce GDP and income growth, they also reduce physical capital accumulation, thereby triggering a long-term negative loop between GDP and capital. The authors hypothesize that, in the long term, GDP per capita should drop in high-income countries but not in low-income countries, where land is more relevant than physical and human capital, and the negative loop effect is weaker.

Bai et al. ( 2021 ) confirm that the long-term pandemic effect differs among countries. They show that infectious diseases in the last 15 years have increased permanent volatility in the US, UK, China, and Japan capital markets. However, public policies of correct timing and intensity could reduce the effect. Ru et al. ( 2021 ) find that countries that have already experienced similar pandemics react better and more readily to future pandemics, especially if past pandemics have led to deaths. Analyzing the 65 largest financial markets in the world, the authors note that countries with firsthand SARS experienced the deepest fall in the stock market during the COVID-19 pandemic. This reaction is positively correlated to the pandemic’s mortality. Donadelli et al. ( 2017 ) confirm that, from 2003 to 2014, disease-related news had adversely affected the returns of the pharmaceutical stock market. Analyzing 102 pharmaceutical firms listed on the US stock market, the authors note that investors were too optimistic about the future liquidity of pharmaceutical sector flows after the shock. This irrational behavior has a positive and persistent effect on the returns of the pharmaceutical stock portfolio. Cakici and Zaremba ( 2021 ) extend the previous results outside the pharmaceutical sector. They observe that pandemics induce irrationality among investors, impacting assets across countries and firms heterogeneously. Analyzing 19 international stock markets, they observe that the stock trend signals to investors the firms’ resilience and ability to react to negative shocks, leading to increased future share performance. Summarizing, the literature analyzing the effects of pandemics on equity markets concludes that these health shocks induce irrational behavior of investors, causing positive and negative long-term effects, heterogeneous among countries, sectors, and firms.

Consensus among scholars is lacking in regard to both the size and direction of the long-term pandemic effects on investments and physical capital. Cuddington ( 1993a ) observes that pandemics affect labor demand and capital markets. The total effect on wages is uncertain: supply shock increases wages, but the demand shock reduces them, because infected workers are less effective, as they need to take sick leave and are less productive. Pandemics also affect domestic capital accumulation because health care costs reduce savings. Therefore, the total impact on capital per capita, GDP, and GDP per capita is uncertain; however, calibrating the model with Tanzanian data, he finds that both GDP and GDP per capita sharply decreased from 1985 to 2010. Cuddington and Hancock ( 1994 ) confirm the result for Malawi, although the lower number of infected people reduced the long-term effects on the economy. Moreover, Cuddington (Cuddington 1993b ) observes that previously predicted effects also hold when formal and informal productive sectors coexist, and formal wages are sticky. Basco et al. ( 2021 ) affirm that the Spanish flu in Spain was primarily a demand shock but confirm that the pandemic impact on the real return of capital is ambiguous in the long term. Although at the theoretical level Karlsson et al. ( 2014 ) confirm the ambiguity of the long-term effect of the Spanish flu on the per capita return on capital, this ambiguity is not observed in the empirical analysis of the Swedish counties. Indeed, by analyzing the effects in the decade following the pandemic, the authors estimate no statistically significant effect on earnings per capita, but clear negative effects emerge on capital returns per capita. Finally, Jinjarak et al. ( 2021 ) show that the H3N2 pandemic reduces GDP, consumption, and the investments of 52 countries.

Other scholars demonstrate that the effect of pandemics is heterogeneous among sectors, a trait shared with most disasters (Halkos and Zisiadou 2019 ). In Egypt, pandemics depleted the rural workforce necessary for the maintenance of the crucial centralized irrigation system, which remained in a state of disrepair, hampering the well-being of the region for centuries (Borsch 2005 , 2015 ). Herlihy ( 1997 ) shows that the rise in wages following the Black Death increased demand for more nutritious and elaborate goods, diversifying consumption and improving welfare. Similarly, Pamuk ( 2007 ) shows that the Plague increased the demand for luxury goods in particular. Moreover, he observes a reduction in interest rates and increased investments, although with asymmetric components. Indeed, Alfani ( 2013 ) shows that the XVII century plague depressed Italian industries, in particular, the wool, flax, silk, and construction sectors, due to the loss of skills and the impossibility of procuring raw materials. Alfani and Percoco ( 2019 ) highlight that the shift of investments from urban to rural activities in this period reoriented the post-plague Italian manufacturing sector towards the production of semi-finished and low-quality goods. Summarizing, scholars observe that short-term changes in the relative composition of both demand and supply structures can lead to long-term sectoral effects.

Similar sectoral asymmetric effects have been recorded for more recent pandemics. Analyzing the potential effects of SARS in Asia, Lee and McKibbin ( 2004 ) find that countries specializing in trade and the tertiary sector are more damaged by both temporary and persistent pandemic shocks. Indeed, in these sectors, close contact with other people is often necessary. The retail and tourism sectors are particularly vulnerable. Gallup and Sachs ( 2001 ) provide further support by showing that Mediterranean and Caribbean countries benefited from the rapid and stable development of the tourism industry after the eradication of malaria. Finally, Mahal ( 2004 )‘s literature review on HIV effects shows a similar, although weaker, effect for sub-Saharan tourism. Moreover, the author shows that health, transport, and the primary sectors are also negatively affected by HIV. Pandemics affect the health sector by increasing costs for healthcare services and insurance. Moreover, he shows that workers in the transport and primary sectors belong to the social classes most affected by HIV. Oster ( 2012 ) finds that export is an essential explanation of the spread of HIV in Africa because more truckers and miners, among others, stay away from home for more extended and more numerous periods. As a result, they and their partners are more likely to engage in risky sexual intercourse, putting themselves and their stable partners in danger. She also affirms that trade could further aggravate the effect in the long term, as additional income could increase the amount of money spent on prostitution, or mitigate it, if money is spent on preventive measures. Using a quasi-experimental variation, Adda ( 2016 ) confirms that the new transportation networks and inter-regional trade accelerated disease diffusion in France from 1984 to 2010. Delfino and Simmons ( 2005 ) combine the effect of capital and labor, using a Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model where only healthy individuals are productive. The authors observe that the introduction of capital makes the path more complex, but that the economy still cyclically converges to a stationary equilibrium. Indeed, when labor supply decreases, GDP decreases. Therefore, both savings and investments are lower, and GDP per worker also decreases. Lower welfare reduces health services consumption, but the impact on the disease transmission is uncertain: it increases as the share of infected rises, but it decreases as the contagion period became shorter. When the labor supply increases again, the cycle restarts. Augier and Yaly ( 2013 ) show that complex growth paths could emerge even in a model where the pandemic affects only capital accumulation. The authors describe an overlapping-generations model where the pandemic increases premature deaths, and then only the survivors will use savings previously accumulated. The government proposes a funds system that redistributes rents among the survivors. Young people must decide how much to invest in this public fund, and how much to spend on health or other goods, knowing that better health reduces the chance of dying prematurely. They observe that the pandemic, capital, and health investments are linked in an articulated and recursive way: (i) the pandemic causes health investment to drop; but (ii) health investment reduces the diffusion of the pandemic; (iii) capital directly affects the investment; and then (iv) it indirectly affects the spread of the pandemic. Therefore, the economy converges to a long-term equilibrium only when contagion rates are low. Finally, Stiglitz and Guzman ( 2021 ) show that pandemics act as an unanticipated technology shock, generating unemployment that government intervention can effectively counteract. In the long term, uncertainty does not decline, thus further increasing the desirability of government intervention.

In Section 3 , we showed that, after a pandemic, life expectancy decreases because a healthy lifespan becomes more uncertain than before, leading to decreased investments in human capital. Similarly, scholars observe that the pandemic also reduces investments in physical capital. Lorentzen et al. ( 2008 ) show that the indirect effects of malaria on life expectancy are higher on physical rather than on human capital investments. Analyzing different databases and case studies, Gallup and Sachs ( 2001 ) conclude that the effects on per capita and total income are negative because both foreign investments and the revenues from tourist and business travelers are drastically lower in those countries affected by malaria. Analyzing the effects of HIV on 43 Asian countries from 1990 to 2015, Fawaz et al. ( 2019 ) conclude that investments and savings are usually inversely related to that pandemic. However, they show that both the sign and the intensity of the effect could differ depending on how far-sighted people are. Additionally, in low income countries, the negative effect of investment is independent of gender, but the pandemic affects men’s saving propensity more than women’s. Vice versa, in high income countries, when life expectancy decreases because of pandemic mortality, men save more but do not increase their investments, while women save less but invest more. Bloom and Mahal ( 1997 ) also focus on savings behavior, using it to explain the insignificant effect of HIV on the income per capita growth rate in 51 countries from 1980 to 1992. First, they observe that poor people are most affected by HIV, and that expensive medical treatments further aggravate their disadvantaged situation. However, social and economic mechanisms partially compensate for the high costs of official health services. Second, higher care costs cause both consumption and savings to drop. Moreover, lower life expectancy may increase precautionary savings in favor of surviving family members. Garrett ( 2008 ) studies the economic and social effects of the influenza pandemic 1918–9 in the US, analyzing newspaper articles and academic papers to draw lessons for modern pandemics. He observes that health care is relevant only with ideal health systems that certainly do not collapse after a pandemic, no matter how serious it is. Moreover, he concludes that, although a higher percentage of life insurance mitigates the adverse financial effects of a pandemic on households, the wealthiest households that will need it least will also be the more protected. Gustafsson-Wright et al. ( 2011 ) show that, in the case of pandemics, the private insurance system can be unfair and distortive, even in countries like Namibia, where the quality of public health care is relatively high, and most people have health insurance. The poor who cannot afford health insurance suffer from higher medical expenditure during a pandemic. There are no substantial effects on medical expenditure and family income until the virus starts affecting working capabilities; then, the economic consequences for the poorer strata worsen severely.

The comprehensive review from Hallegatte et al. ( 2020 ) confirms that poor people are disproportionately affected by natural hazards and disasters. Pandemics are no exception. Gaffeo ( 2003 ) provides additional support for the idea that pandemics can lead households into a poverty trap. Higher care costs and physical weakness reduce income capacity: for poor households, this leads to malnutrition, further reducing their physical capabilities, and increasing the pandemic’s morbidity and mortality. Physical and human capital trends reinforce this adverse and cumulative loop. Finally, he observes that pandemics worsen market failures for health insurance and local credit availability. Due to adverse selection and moral hazard, the higher uncertainty and information asymmetries inherent to pandemics lead to higher insurance premiums and reduced access to credit for the needy. Habyarimana et al. ( 2010 ) show that, while private firms could invest in their workers’ medical care, they are unlikely to do so. They describe the case of the pioneering firm Debswana Diamond Company in Botswana, which, since 2001, has invested in a program to improve the health of its workers affected by HIV. They observe that the treatment works, but the investment is unprofitable as the costs are too high, supporting the idea that African firms can only bear a small share of their workers’ health costs, if any.

While the previous literature shows that a pandemic increases income inequalities, Odugbesan and Rjoub ( 2019 ) argue that pandemics could hinder sustainable development. In this connection, these authors analyze the link between HIV and both public and private adjusted net savings, as an indicator of sustainable economic development, for 26 sub-Saharan African countries from 1990 to 2016. They show that HIV negatively and unidirectionally affects saving, and that the effect is particularly intense for upper-middle- and low-income countries. HIV also negatively affects the perception of government efficiency in low-middle-income countries. Odugbesan and Rjoub ( 2020 ) show that, for 23 sub-Saharan African countries from 1993 to 2016, the adverse relationship is bidirectional because the HIV control program and sustainable development compete for the same public spending budget. Keerthiratne and Tol ( 2017 ) show that the financial impact of disasters, pandemics included, is country- and time-specific. Moreover, Chakrabarty and Roy ( 2021 ) propose a model where the future pandemic uncertainty reduces government allocation of non-health expenditures in favor of the health ones. In 143 countries from 2000 to 2017, they found that higher-debt countries present a public misallocation and delay due to public constraints. A similar effect also emerges in low-income countries, but this is due to asymmetric information. Bai et al. ( 2021 ) show that, up to a point, the effects of pandemics could be efficiently mitigated with fiscal and monetary policies. Finally, Cavallo et al. ( 2013 ) confirm that governments and institutions could play a key role in the economic effects of a pandemic. Using a database from the Centre for Research on Epidemiology and Disasters, they observe that natural disasters, such as a pandemic, have a long-term negative economic impact only when they simultaneously cause a high number of deaths and are followed by institutional and political revolutions.

Knowledge and Innovation

Historians have identified numerous cases of pandemics being catalysts of significant, systemic change. In his comprehensive overview of the impact of the Black Death on Europe, Herlihy ( 1997 ) argues that it led to larger economic diversification, improved technology, and better lives, breaking the XIII century Malthusian deadlock by directing technological change towards the now cheaper input, i.e. capital. Although educational institutions were gravely hit, with one-sixth of European universities closed, as a long-term reaction to this short-term impact, a number of new educational institutions were built in reaction to the dearth of scholars. The new universities adopted more flexible curricula, contributing to the revival of classical studies. The need to face the Plague also forced the acceptance and diffusion of anatomical studies, fostering the development of the scientific approach in medicine. Epstein ( 2000 ) offers a similarly positive account, underlining how the Black Death brought much needed renewal. European feudalism was locked in a low-growth pattern, not because of lacking innovative capabilities, or market institutions, but rather due to the intensity of seigniorial rights, and the jurisdictional power of towns and lords, which were used to maximize the extraction of resources, mostly for military purposes, greatly hampering development. The scarcity of workforce caused by the Plague shock reduced the bargaining power of the landowner in favor of the worker. The resulting political and economic struggle is described as a process of “creative destruction”. The centralization process was greatly accelerated, leading to the consolidation of internal markets, the standardization of legal procedures and business norms, and the progressive rationalization of hierarchies. As a result, in the long term, transaction costs and economic uncertainty declined significantly, as testified by the structural decline in interest rates, which quickened the pace of innovation and trade growth. One of the long-lasting consequences of the pandemic for Europe was a more centralized, less predatory authority, able to support the process of economic development.

The institutionally “liquidationist” account of pandemics also applies to other centuries. For example, Alfani ( 2013 ) observes how plagues irrevocably affected the balance of power in Italy, favoring the rise of the House of Savoy, which eventually led to the Italian unification. Pamuk ( 2007 ) describes how the Plague created local skilled labor scarcity, incentivizing migration and fostering the dissemination of knowledge in the long term. Higher wages stimulated the substitution of land and capital for labor, creating conditions favorable to the implementation and diffusion of labor-saving innovations across all economic fields: the printing press, firearms, and high-capacity maritime transportation can all be linked to this general trend. Voigtländer and Voth ( 2013 ) offer what is perhaps the more optimistic view of the long-term impact of the Black Death, arguing that the positive impact of the persistently high European mortality rates dwarfed the effects of technological change for the entire 1500–1700 period. Clark ( 2007 ) provides a useful counterfactual, analyzing how the Far East, relatively less affected by plagues, maintained a growth regime characterized by both low income and low mortality. Not all plagues, however, are described in such a positive light.

Alfani and Percoco ( 2019 ) document the significant negative impact of the plague of 1629–30 on the long-term development of the Italian cities and the Italian economy. In addition to the mechanisms already explored in the previous sections, the authors argue that the significant losses suffered by the urban economic elite, who controlled most of the advanced manufacturing activities, caused an “ingenuity shock”, i.e. decreased both the availability and the willingness of the surviving elite to innovate in the urban industry, preferring agricultural investments instead. The latter took a dramatic hit in terms of production capabilities, which recovered only after decades. The exceptionally late recovery slowed the process of recovery and urbanization, weakening the Italian competitive position vis-à-vis Northern Europe in manufacturing. The almost uniform lack of wage increases signals how the long-term reduction in supply capabilities was not a consequence of lacking a skilled workforce, but rather a significant long-term change in the pattern of capitalist investments. This argument is important to underline how general, systemic renewal might encompass significant relative changes. The hypothesis that the plague did not damage, and perhaps even fostered, European development as a whole, is entirely consistent with the description of significant short- and long-term harm being wrought to large sections of the continental socioeconomic system. This is also consistent with Pamuk ( 2007 )‘s description of the divergence between North and South Europe, which emerged in response to the Plague as a consequence of the greater entrenchment of Southern political and economic elites, and the associated slower degree of institutional flexibility and, consequently, innovation and knowledge diffusion. In his recent overview of the subject, Alfani ( 2021 ) provides further evidence for the relevance of institutional change and policy choices on the long-term impact of pandemics on economic distribution and growth, illustrating how pandemics create opportunities for institutional change while also creating issues that, if not effectively tackled, can severely worsen the economic conditions of the poorer sections of the population.

On the negative side of the debate, Bar and Leukhina ( 2010 ) argue that epidemics have the capability to disrupt knowledge transfer across generations, leading to significant reductions in total factor productivity growth over time. They show that the long-term loss is moderated by the possibility of knowledge diffusion from regions that were spared negative health shocks, implying that the scope of this negative mechanism would be much greater in the case of a pandemic. Karlsson et al. ( 2014 ) document the impact of the Spanish flu on the Swedish economy, finding a long-term negative effect on capital income and a positive effect on the rate of poverty, both possibly driven by a significant persistent loss of skilled workers and consequently a decline in labor productivity. Jinjarak et al. ( 2021 ) show that the H3N2 epidemic can have permanent negative effects on productivity. Indeed, also when the productivity rate returns to its pre-shock level, some opportunities are lost or delayed forever, and then the innovation path will be always lower than without pandemics. Chen et al. ( 2021 ) even state that epidemics have the worst impact on innovation among natural disasters. Indeed, they affirm that epidemics reallocate public expenditure from innovation to health, reducing patent applications and innovation in 49 countries over 1985–2018. In Eastern Europe, feudal lords reacted to epidemics by re-enslaving the peasantry, greatly hampering the diffusion and implementation of new agricultural techniques, and locking the regions in a relative underdevelopment pattern called “second serfdom” (Domar 1970 ; Robinson and Acemoglu 2012 ). Similarly, the plagues affecting the Roman Empire and its successor states led to persistent socioeconomic degradation, aided by conservative political reforms introduced by the surviving elites (Duncan-Jones 1996 ; Sarris 2002 ; Little 2007 ; Harper 2016 ).

Yet pandemics are also great opportunities for the creation and diffusion of new knowledge. Bresalier ( 2012 ) documents how the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918–9 was a turning point in the modernization of British medicine, leading to the establishment of key institutions and organizations that would shape the long-term development of medical research and healthcare, chief among them the Medical Research Council. The latter led to a wider active involvement of the state in sanitary matters. In general, the author shows that the pandemic’s effects were instrumental in developing the modern medical research system. Hopkins ( 1988 ) provides a description, similar in spirit, of how the successful smallpox eradication campaign conducted by the World Health Organization led to organizational learning, and the development and institutionalization of best practices, thereby greatly enhancing global medical response and prevention capabilities. Furthermore, large shocks, such as pandemics, can create windows of opportunity for change. This is echoed by Cohen ( 2019 )‘s review of the same episode, concluding that, while research and innovation activities played a key role in ensuring the campaign’s success, these efforts were at first greatly hindered by inappropriate practices and institutional routines. Only when the involved organizations implemented new and improved procedures did technological solutions become truly effective. While the scale differs, the argument echoes Pamuk ( 2007 )‘s. Wallace and Ràfols ( 2018 ) show that the avian flu highlighted how both excellence-based funding schemes and economic interests contribute to unduly restrict the field of active research as compared with the broad range of scientific opinions offered by experts, resulting in the development of a limited selection of techniques from the available knowledge base.

Analyzing the impact on the knowledge generation of vaccination subsidies, Finkelstein ( 2004 ) observes that, apart from the direct health impact from the eradication of illnesses, higher expected profitability might lead to socially wasteful competition for market share in the long term. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that the outcome depends on the state of the technological frontier and market conditions, as expressed by vaccination rates. In most cases, subsidies appear to lead to purely wasteful competition, but, in the case of the flu, there is evidence of increased product quality and demand, with the associated dynamic benefits outweighing static gains. Consistently, Kremer ( 2000 ) pointed out that market failures are endemic in the markets for both vaccine provision and vaccine research. While this opens up opportunities for policy intervention, it simultaneously underlines the challenges involved in the design of truly effective instruments. Similar challenges are described by Keohane ( 2016 ), in which innovative financial practices developed in the long term as a reaction to large shocks, including pandemics. He argues that “risk transfer for disease is a vital public good that the market has not otherwise provided” (ibid,130), and that new preventive and preparedness measures could be financed through the issue of catastrophe bonds. While these catastrophe bonds are expensive, the benefits of increased resilience in the face of health shocks might be a net gain, especially if the costs are somewhat lessened by pooled funds international initiatives. Although significant overlapping exists in terms of health-crisis preparedness and the organizational capacity of response, such an approach is probably more effective for estimating regional epidemic risks. Such instruments may be particularly useful in light of Confraria and Wang ( 2020 )‘s finding of persistent radical disparity between the disease burden carried by African countries and the amount of medical research dedicated to specifically African issues relative to global efforts.

The discussion so far has been focused on mechanisms that connect pandemics to the development of knowledge and practice, and from those to their economic and financial impact. Easterlin ( 1995 ) provides an original analysis based on a different viewpoint. Analyzing the steep decline in mortality that took place in northwestern Europe in the nineteenth century, he maintains that both the industrial and the health revolutions have a common root: the ascendancy of the scientific approach leading to technological change in both areas. The argument implies, on the one hand, that economic growth is not the main driver of life expectancy improvements, and, on the other, that improvements in health and life expectancy do not have a direct effect on economic outcomes, a position compatible with the relatively weak empirical evidence available (Acemoglu and Johnson 2007 ). The cause of structural change is argued to be found in the extraordinary stream of innovations implemented during the period, supported by a swarm of Schumpeterian “entrepreneurs”, only marginally motivated by profitability. Both those revolutions were triggered by the acceleration in the accumulation of usable empirical knowledge through the establishment and diffusion of the scientific method, the difference in timing to be imputed to the difficulty of developing and implementing the scientific solution. Deaton ( 2004 ) similarly argues that knowledge transfer, in the form of both effective practices and useful information, is key for explaining different national patterns of mortality decline and life expectancy increase, pointing out how globalization could benefit developing countries in this respect.

The argument is further expanded by Easterlin ( 1999 ), who showed that, while private firms have been crucial in fostering economic development, their role in improving health and especially infectious disease control practices has been marginal at best. Indeed, the preventive measures improve life expectancy more than the therapeutic ones, but firms rarely adopt them. However, the actions of households and governments are more important for disease prevention. The role of government is especially relevant because public action is necessary for both health education and prevention programs. Easterlin shows how irreplaceable effective knowledge and healthy practices are in the process of preventing and curing diseases, but how ineffective markets, contracts, and private property institutions have been in fostering their historical development, due to a number of related market failures. In fact, medical practitioners and public servants working towards the diffusion of salubrious norms have often found themselves hindered by economic actors defending their profitable, if deleterious, business. In his account of the US development, Gordon ( 2016 ) confirms both the decisive role of scientific advances and the importance of government intervention and regulation for the drastic improvement in health and life expectancy that took place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, Birchenall ( 2007 ) proposes an alternative explanation for the manifestly weak correlation between contemporaneous income growth and mortality, highlighting the significant long-term impact of income growth in terms of improved adult health and life expectancy, and subsequent mortality reduction. The argument is supported by a model illustrating how sustained economic growth, no matter the source, is sufficient to escape the Malthusian equilibrium, leading to drastically lower mortality in the process. Cervellati and Sunde ( 2015 ) provide further support by developing a model based on unified growth theory, also characterized by an inevitable take-off triggered by sufficient technological progress.

From the historical description emerges a complex interplay of negative and positive relations between health and business practices, driven by the contrast between short- and long-term interests, on the one hand, and private and public interests, on the other. This complexity is faced by Mokyr ( 2010 ) in his attempt to outline the principles of an evolutionary approach to the study of the development of useful medical knowledge. He begins by highlighting the two key idiosyncratic characteristics of such a knowledge field: the largely inelastic character of its demand, as all humans value their lives and health under all circumstances, and the relevance of negative exogenous shocks, such as the spread of pandemics. Medical knowledge maps to a set of instructions and recipes capable of guiding action, called techniques. According to context-specific selection criteria, only a subset of related techniques will actually be implemented for a given set of knowledge. While the actual usage of techniques is rival, knowledge can endlessly accumulate with only limited downsides. The evolutionary process of knowledge is mostly based on persuasion mechanisms; on the contrary, the related techniques are evaluated on their relative effectiveness. However, persistent empirical failure might not be sufficient as a selection mechanism, if no better technique is available on the basis of the socially accepted set of useful knowledge. This is particularly likely in the case of singleton techniques, based on the limited empirical knowledge that “this works”, and is therefore incapable of adaptation to sudden change. The shift towards scientific knowledge ensures that techniques are based on a more nuanced understanding of natural phenomena, enabling quicker and more efficient adaptation to exogenous shocks. Limits are provided by the path-dependency of knowledge development, which is only indirectly affected by the usefulness of related techniques. While this might result in the generation of “useless” knowledge, degrading response capacity in the present, sudden exogenous changes might lead to equally sudden revaluations. Summarizing, pandemics are a simultaneous shock to both practices and the underlying knowledge, as their often dramatic impact is sufficient to create opportunities for shifting entire development trajectories. The emergence of new knowledge and practices can be further amplified by diffuse and profound institutional change, which in turn may lead to significant upheavals, positive or negative. Owing to the complex nature of the outcomes, however, normative judgment lies beyond the capabilities of purely theoretical analysis.

The first key result of this review is that in the analysis of pandemics’ long-term economic consequences, historical and epidemiological characteristics are key (Donadelli et al. 2021 ; Meyers and Thomasson 2021 ). The extraordinary mortality associated with the Black Death is the most crucial factor in explaining its exceptional long-term consequences for European and global socioeconomic development (Pamuk 2007 ; Voigtländer and Voth 2013 ). Research on the consequences of HIV has rightly focused on its sexual transmission (Young 2005 ; Oster 2012 ; Fawaz et al. 2019 ; Gori et al. 2020 ) and the intergenerational consequences of increased mortality among working-age adults (Wobst and Arndt 2004 ; McDonald and Roberts 2006 ; McCannon and Rodriguez 2019 ). Therefore, the results offered by a general economic analysis of pandemics should be considered a wide collection of potential mechanisms, their empirical applicability and relative importance to be carefully weighed on a case-by-case basis. This does not imply that knowledge is not cumulative in this field, but rather that application of past knowledge should account for contextual factors in order to determine the likely long-term impact of a specific pandemic.

Our review of the literature goes one step further. By aggregating the pandemics by their effects on various economic factors, we observe some recurring trends, allowing some useful general conclusions to emerge. Table  1 provides a comprehensive overview of papers published in English focused on the relationship between pandemics and economic development. Following this paper’s structure, we organize the papers according to the mechanisms investigated into three broad categories: labor and human capital; physical capital and investments; and knowledge and innovation. We show that diseases can potentially affect all the productive factors of an economy in the long term. Most of the articles focus on the pandemic impacts on labor and human capital, all finding negative long-term impacts. However, some authors show that this effect could be partially mitigated in specific geographical areas, workers’ categories, and industrial sectors. The long-term effects on investment and physical capital are ambiguous: many papers show contrasting and complex mechanisms that do not allow us to know a priori the overall economic effects of pandemics on long-term investment trajectories. Notably, all papers which show long-term positive effects of pandemics on economic development focus on knowledge and innovation. However, negative cases also exist, leading many scholars to observe that the effect is potentially mixed, its direction dependent on necessary but not always implemented institutional changes.

The following general picture of the effects of pandemics on economic development emerges from our analysis. First, pandemics tend to reduce population and labor supply in both the short and the long term. This increases labor productivity, and therefore average wages. However, pandemics also hinder human capital accumulation, reducing productivity and per capita income growth. The negative effect is further compounded by the associated loss of knowledge, skills, experience, and innovative capabilities. Investments and savings are also negatively affected, leading to potential long-term hysteresis and the emergence of new, lower-income equilibria.

The pandemic shock can also break old patterns, opening new innovative trajectories previously inaccessible. The aggregate impact of these long-term mechanisms on the economic system is dependent on the relative relevance of, mostly harmful, adaptive mechanisms vis-à-vis potentially fruitful innovative responses. When the latter dominate the picture, negative long-term effects are overwhelmed by the benefits captured by radically new socioeconomic models of production, trade, and consumption. Therefore, the key factor determining the long-term impact of pandemics is identified with the innovation processes to which they give rise, and particularly the necessary accompanying processes of institutional change. While these effects are more difficult to capture using traditional economic methods, they are highlighted by historical analysis and should not be ignored by researchers and policymakers alike (Callegari and Feder 2021b ; Jena et al. 2021 ; Mandel and Veetil 2020 ).

Another important conclusion that can be drawn from this review is that most short-term outcomes, such as the immediate reduction in labor supply (Bloom and Sachs 1998 ; Alfani 2013 ), can bring, in the long term, significantly different consequences in both scope and quality when compared with the transient short-term effects (Delfino and Simmons 2005 ; Acemoglu and Johnson 2007 ; Basco et al. 2021 ). Several specific long-term mechanisms also emerge (e.g., Herlihy 1997 ; Young 2005 ; Augier and Yaly 2013 ), whose impact can hardly be overstated (Lorentzen et al. 2008 ; Voigtländer and Voth 2013 ). Therefore, it is unsurprising that attempts to produce comprehensive quantitative measurements of the economic consequences of pandemics appear to be affected by a significant downward bias (Lee and McKibbin 2004 ; Mahal 2004 ; Keogh-Brown et al. 2010 ). The exceptional nature of the shock brought by the Black Death of 1347–52 has obscured the economic consequences of the other late-medieval plagues, of which we know little. Lack of strong empirical evidence should be understood in the context of the complexity of the phenomena involved, and therefore not be interpreted at first sight as sufficient for falsification purposes. At the same time, however, the mechanisms at work in the most deadly pandemics should not be assumed to apply in exactly the same way to weaker, shorter, or smaller case episodes: the complexity of the phenomena under analysis cannot be reduced to a single formal model. Research on the long-term impacts of pandemics should be understood as a collaborative effort, with single researchers and teams focusing on different, yet compatible, mechanisms. A comprehensive picture can only emerge from subsequent efforts to produce cohesive overviews of the entirety of the debate rather than from a single model, no matter how ambitious.

Some lessons for policymakers also follow. The first is that, in light of the idiosyncratic characteristics of pandemics, precise and detailed analyses of their long-term effects are only possible ex-post. Therefore, preparations for such events should focus on reactive capabilities to ensure that: research efforts can be quickly and adequately supported; their results are credibly communicated to the authorities and the general public; and scientifically-founded counter-measures are rapidly implemented. These characteristics apply to both health measures and economic policy. Furthermore, when these dramatic events occur, the effective public intervention should be timely (Bai et al. 2021 ; Martin et al. 2020 ; Rodríguez-Caballero and Vera-Valdés 2020 ; Stiglitz and Guzman 2021 ) and designed starting from the general characteristics that emerged in this review, and then directed over time by distinctive challenges brought by the specific health shock. The second lesson is that symmetric health shocks will lead to asymmetric economic long-term consequences, as country-specific institutional settings mediate most effects. The tendencies towards the uncritical adoption of global solutions should be tempered by concern for the specific features of local socioeconomic systems, leading to a preliminary process of policy customization. Resistance and push-back from below should not be interpreted automatically as regressive tendencies, but rather as symptoms of the need for policy adaptation to local concerns. Finally, the third lesson is that, while pandemics require careful and extensive public intervention, what matters most in the long term is to avoid crushing the innovative response capabilities of the private sector. A virtuous process of creative destruction may emerge only if public intervention does not attempt to restore the old socioeconomic regime, potentially now unsustainable, at all costs, trampling adaptive bottom-up initiatives in the process. Consequently, while initial efforts should be aimed towards counteracting immediate shocks, they should eventually be complemented by measures aiming to support the positive qualitative developments triggered by the pandemic and curb emerging negative trends. Thus, a potential positive role for policy action can be expected to persist well beyond the outbreak period, focusing on enabling and supporting positive private responses through processes of institutional change.

Conclusions

The COVID-19 pandemic has made evident the need to study the overall economic effects of global health shocks. This literature review collects the main contributions that describe the long-term impact of a pandemic, in order to better understand the lessons from the current economic literature on this topic, and then to better address and analyze the effects on economic development of COVID-19 and of future risks of pandemics. The contributions are organized by discussing, in turn, the mechanisms affecting: labor and human capital; investments and physical capital; and knowledge and innovation. We conclude that pandemics could affect aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and productivity (Jinjarak et al. 2021 ). More precisely, we show that a pandemic reduces labor supply and human capital accumulation in the long term; that the complex interaction of these contrasting and idiosyncratic mechanisms on investments and savings is theoretically indeterminate; and that pandemics, when accompanied by supporting institutional change, can greatly benefit innovation and knowledge development. However, a detailed analysis of the pandemic’s specific characteristics, the affected economic systems, and their response remains necessary to understand which mechanisms can be expected to prevail and which policies should be implemented. The key factors determining their long-term impact are the associated processes of institutional change. We finally identify some general lessons for both researchers and policymakers. The research focuses on the theoretical plausibility and empirical significance of specific mechanisms that should be complemented by meta-analytic efforts aimed at reconstructing the resulting complexity. Policymakers should prioritize developing organizational learning and innovative capabilities, focusing on the ability to quickly adapt to emergencies, rather than developing rigid protocols calibrated over previous pandemics.

We expect the emergence of three new strands of literature in the near future. The first field of research will be on the long-term economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (Jordà et al. 2021 ; Poblete-Cazenave 2021 ; Tokic 2020 ). Such research will contribute to testing previously identified mechanisms reviewed here, while potentially also leading to the identification and theorization of new ones (Cacault et al. 2021 ; Silverio-Murillo et al. 2021 ; Costa Junior et al. 2021 ; Favilukis et al. 2021 ; Pagano et al. 2021 ). We also expect significant interest in comparing the impact of COVID-19 with previous pandemics, in order to highlight the relative importance of their respective defining features. The second field of research will be on the public and private responses to the effects of pandemics. The heterogeneity of both the method and timing of the institutional responses for the same health shock can be used to effectively test their efficiency and reduce the impact of future pandemic and epidemic waves (Adolph et al. 2021 ; Caserotti et al. 2021 ; Chakrabarty and Roy 2021 ; Croce et al. 2021 ; Martin et al. 2020 ). The ongoing debate on structural changes as a response to COVID-19 can be seen as a first step in increasing academic attention to the problem of the prediction of possible future pandemics and the precautionary measures to be taken in dealing with these events (Büscher et al. 2021 ; Dosi et al. 2020 ; Leach et al. 2021 ). Finally, we expect a more extensive interaction between, and cross-fertilization of, the medical and economic literatures (Avery et al. 2020 ; Murray 2020 ; Verikios 2020 ). This combination will be needed to better understand how a specific feature of the virus impacts economic development. A taxonomy of pandemics is necessary to group them correctly and then clarify how the different mechanisms move in and impact economic development. In general, we expect the academic debate on the long-term economic impact of pandemics to be renewed and reinforced in the coming years. This survey has the ultimate goal of preparing the basis for this inevitable and intellectually challenging new generation of scientific contributions on the long-term economic effects of pandemics.

Data Availability

Not applicable.

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Parents’ financial socialization or socioeconomic characteristics: which has more influence on Gen-Z’s financial wellbeing?

• Khalid Abdul Ghafoor   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4710-1055 1 , 2 &
• Muhammad Akhtar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3934-7381 3  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  522 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Business and management

This research aims to explore the effectiveness of various approaches for promoting financial wellbeing among Gen-Z, with a particular focus on the parental role in shaping financial attitudes and behavior, using the theoretical lens of family financial socialization theory. The study utilized a mixed-methods approach to obtain in-depth findings on parental financial socialization and parental socioeconomic characteristics for Gen-Zs’ financial wellbeing. The qualitative findings revealed that parents use different strategies to financially socialize children by involving them in savings, financial decisions, and household and personal finances. Furthermore, it is found that parents are more inclined to teach daughters than sons about finances because of the expectations that females handle the household finances. Likewise, quantitative findings revealed that the father’s education level negatively influences Gen-Z’s financial attitude. This study strengthens the concept of family socialization and establishes a ground to explore potential mechanisms of action and implications for future research and practice.

Introduction

Financial wellbeing is a critical aspect of the overall wellbeing of individuals. It can impact the ability to meet basic needs, achieve life goals, and handle unexpected financial emergencies (Diener, 2000 , Fan and Henager, 2022 ; She et al., 2021 ). While struggle to manage finances leads to stress, anxiety, and financial hardship (Elliott and Lewis, 2016 ). Particularly after COVID-19, there has been a growing interest in the interventions aimed at improving the financial wellbeing of Gen–-Z (aged 18–29 years) (Philippas and Avdoulas, 2020 ; Renaldo et al., 2020 ). The pandemic affected the global economic system and increased economic uncertainty, wherein many households experienced job losses, income reduction, and financial stress, which influenced Gen-Zs’ education, career, and identity formation (Bosch et al., 2016 ; LeBaron et al., 2020 ; Loayza and Pennings, 2020 ; Ranta et al., 2020 ; Shim et al., 2009 ; Terriquez and Gurantz, 2015 ; Xiao et al., 2009 ). Literature documents that Gen-Z’s financial attitudes, behavior, and wellbeing are influenced by many factors including their upbringing, education, and socioeconomic background (Shim et al., 2010 ). However, among these, parental financial socialization has been found predominant in previous studies (Fan and Chatterjee, 2019 ; Zhao and Zhang, 2020 ). Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effectiveness of various approaches for promoting financial wellbeing among Gen-Z, particularly focusing on the role of parental financial socialization and parents’ socioeconomic characteristics in shaping children’s financial attitudes, behavior, and wellbeing.

Parents play an important role in shaping children’s financial attitudes and behavior by providing them with guidance and support (Fan et al., 2022 ). The family financial socialization theory posits that parents can influence children’s behavior explicitly and implicitly (Gudmunson and Danes, 2011 ). Both methods were found prominent but distinct in their modes of communication and financial socialization approaches to convey financial knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior to growing adults. Explicit (purposive parental financial socialization) refers to direct, intentional, and financial communication on budgeting, savings, and financial goals from parents to children that can be considered a motivational force for children’s financial wellbeing (Fan, Lim and Lee, 2022 ; LeBaron‐Black et al., 2022 ; Pak et al., 2023 ; Sheng et al., 2022 ). Correspondingly, Implicit financial socialization (the role-modeling method of parental financial socialization), is the most dominant financial socialization process. It involves the transmission of parental financial attitudes, values, and behavior that are shaped by socioeconomic characteristics through everyday interactions, involving savings, spending, and financial management behavior (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010 ). Hence, both explicit and implicit parental financial socialization play a vital role in shaping growing adults’ financial attitudes and behavior, offering a holistic approach to financial socialization within the family unit (Zhao et al., 2023 ). Prior literature, analyzed these two factors as a single construct rather than differentiating explicit and implicit parental socialization (Jorgensen and Savla, 2010 ; Ndou, 2023 ; Pak et al., 2023 ; Zhao et al., 2023 ). Thus, this study explores purposive parental financial socialization as an explicit and parents’ socioeconomic characteristics as an implicit factor to distinguish their influence on Gen Zs’ financial wellbeing.

Parents’ socioeconomic characteristics, such as education, occupation, income, and social status, affect children’s education and occupational achievement (Erola et al., 2016 ). However, these effects were found to be different for fathers and mothers in Asia-Pacific developing countries. Specifically, fathers are seen as the head of the family and is more responsible for intergenerational financial achievements through financial assets. Mothers are associated with managing household finance and children’s educational achievements. Therefore, fathers work full-time and earn higher earnings than mothers and retire earlier from the workforce than mothers (Fan et al., 2022 ). Literature documents that parents’ occupation and education significantly influence children’s financial behavior and outcomes. Parents with higher education and income tend to have better financial literacy, financial management skills, and incomes than others (Chevalier et al., 2013 ; Glick and Sahn, 2000 ). However, this may impact Gen-Zs’ financial attitude differently (Andrea, 2023 ; Salikin et al., 2012 ). Young adults navigate the complex world of personal finance, so the influence of parent’s socioeconomic characteristics and purposive financial socialization on their financial behavior and wellbeing cannot be overlooked (Fan et al., 2022 ; Khawar and Sarwar, 2021 ; LeBaron et al., 2020 ). Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the impact of parents’ socioeconomic characteristics (occupation and education) on children’s financial attitudes, behavior, and wellbeing. Understanding these relationships can provide insights for financial educators and policymakers to develop effective interventions and policies to improve financial behavior and wellbeing of Gen-Zs.

The present study diverges from the previous literature by focusing on Gen-Z in Asia-Pacific developing countries. Individuals in these countries might be affected by unique regional and cultural aspects which may impact the financial socialization process in developing Gen-Z’s financial attitudes and behavior. It is important to test the outcomes of the results obtained from economically developed countries with that of developing countries such as Pakistan. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the study reconnoitered two distinguished dimensions of parental financial socialization, i.e., explicit (purposive parental financial socialization), and implicit (parental socioeconomic characteristics) to provide a more nuanced understanding of the role of parental financial socialization in shaping Gen-Zs’ financial attitudes and behavior. Second, this study fills the literature gap by providing qualitative evidence on the parental socialization process in shaping the financial attitude and behavior of Gen-Z, along with parents’ perception regarding children’s financial wellbeing. Third, the existing literature mostly focused on middle, older-aged, and working adults’ financial wellbeing (Kiso and Hershey, 2017 ; Koposko, 2014 ; Nga and Yeoh, 2021 ). However, the current study aimed to tap Gen-Z to get in-depth knowledge about the role of parental socialization in shaping the financial attitude and behavior of Gen-Z. The remaining paper has been divided into four parts. The first part covers the literature review, followed by methodology and findings, while detailed analysis followed by theoretical and practical implications are covered in the last section.

Literature review

Parental financial socialization and theoretical underpinning.

The key aims of this study were guided by the theory of family financial socialization (Gudmunson and Danes, 2011 ) to emphasize that parents are the most influential social agents that influence an individual’s financial attitude, behavior, and wellbeing (Agnew et al., 2018 ; Deenanath et al., 2019 ; Madinga et al., 2022 ; Webley and Nyhus, 2006 , 2013 ). Moreover, theory argues that parental financial socialization can impact both explicitly through purposive financial communication and implicitly through day-to-day family interactions. Explicit parental financial socialization can be exercised by encouraging and educating the children on financial management topics like budgeting, savings, and investments during their early life (Bucciol and Veronesi, 2014 , Hira et al., 2013 ; Webley and Nyhus, 2006 , 2013 ). Importantly, engaging them in open family finances conversations enhances children’s financial knowledge and improves their short and long-term financial behavior (Shim et al., 2009 ). In addition, literature also found the role of gender through which children explicitly learn from their parents (Eccles et al., 1990 ; 2000 ). In many cultures, parents are more inclined to teach their daughters than sons about finances because of the understanding that females handle household finances (Boateng et al., 2014 ; Yusof, 2015 ). This might have happened because parents believe that empowering females in household decision-making process impacts their wellbeing (Jabeen et al., 2020 ; Lee et al., 2020 ; Solbes-Canales et al., 2020 ). Hence, explicit parental financial socialization is positively correlated with responsible financial behavior among Gen-Z that can significantly energize their efforts to attain financial knowledge, attitude, and skills (Fan et al., 2022 ; Jorgensen et al., 2017 ; Kaur et al., 2023 ; LeBaron‐Black et al., 2022 ; Pandey et al., 2020 ; Wee and Goy, 2022 ). Correspondingly, implicitly, children learn by observing parents’ financial behavior, attitude, asset accumulation, spending, savings, and investment behavior (Agnew, 2018 ; Kagotho et al., 2017 ; Saurabh and Nandan, 2019 ). In addition to this way of parental financial socialization, parents’ socioeconomic characteristics can also implicitly influence their children’s financial attitude and behavior (Bradley and Corwyn, 2002 ; Mahapatra et al., 2023 ). Although it has been noticed in the existing literature that both explicit and implicit socialization work together in developing the financial attitude and behavior of Gen-Z. No research has been conducted to empirically examine how both methods separately influence Gen-Z’s financial wellbeing. To address this gap, the study aims to empirically investigate the impact of explicit parental financial socialization (i.e., purposive financial socialization) and implicit parental financial socialization (i.e., parents’ socioeconomic characteristics) on Gen-Zs’ financial behavior and wellbeing.

Gen-Z, the first cohort to come of age in the era of social media, experiences continuous exposure to well-crafted portrayals of lifestyle, affluence, and material things. This exposure stimulates a craving for immediate satisfaction and consumerism, while also generating impractical expectations for spending and saving behaviors. Children may experience the influence of peer pressure, which can compel them to comply with societal expectations and participate in conspicuous consumption as a means of upholding their social status. It has critical financial implications for both sides. On the one hand, parents have to make extra efforts to meet the financial needs and expectations of children. On the other hand, their extra efforts are not only making them time-poor but also distancing them from their children. This leads to an ongoing challenge for parenting and financially socializing Gen-Z. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the potential impact of parental financial socialization on Gen-Z’s financial attitude and behavior.

Financial wellbeing

Financial wellbeing is defined as “ having financial security and financial freedom of choice to make prudent financial decisions in the present and the future ” (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2015 ). The indicators of financial wellbeing were found both objective financial wellbeing (OFW) and subjective financial wellbeing (SFW). OFW reveals material possessions, and it is measured through income, savings, debt, asset accumulation, liquidity, and so forth. SFW is used as a parameter to measure individuals’ self-satisfaction level regarding their finances (Sorgente and Lanz, 2017 , 2019 ; Xiao and O’Neill, 2018 ). Financial wellbeing has been investigated as a prerequisite to financial security against financial risks triggered by macroeconomic factors, including a hyperinflationary environment (She et al., 2021 ). It makes a significant contribution to individuals’ life quality, health, productivity, satisfying social relationships, and general wellbeing (Fan and Henager, 2022 ; She et al., 2021 ; Xiao and O’Neill, 2018). Moreover, it enables individuals to manage household finances, captivate financial tremors, plan and meet financial goals, and eventually get financial freedom. However, the question that still needs attention is; ‘what are the antecedents of financial wellbeing?’ Previous studies have constructed a significant relationship between financial wellbeing and various precursors including financial stress, job insecurity (Choi et al., 2020 ; Friedline et al., 2021 ), financial behavior (Iramani and Lutfi, 2021 ; Riyazahmed, 2021 ; Setiyani and Solichatun, 2019 ), and financial knowledge (Lee et al., 2020 ; Riitsalu and Murakas, 2019 ; Rabbani et al., 2022 ). Furthermore, parents are found one of the influential social agents who can stimulate financial wellbeing (Pak et al., 2023 ; Pandey et al., 2020 ; Xiao et al., 2009 ). In addition, parental demographics such as gender, age, marital status, family size, labor market forces, and so forth were also found to be linked with individuals’ financial wellbeing. Hence, all these findings encourage the study to further enrich the literature on the antecedents of the financial wellbeing of Gen-Z.

Financial behavior

Financial behavior is “any human behavior that is relevant to money management, such as cash, credit, and saving behavior” (Xiao, 2008 ). Short-term financial behavior refers to cash or debt management in a way that keeps an individual away from financially stressful events; whereas, long-term financial behavior detains more future financial planning to avoid financially stressful events (Wagner and Walstad, 2019 ). The literature describes the coping behavior of an individual as either problem-focused to mitigate financial stress or, emotion-focused to manage emotions. Financial stress caused by financial stressors i.e., non-descriptive financial events that may affect social status of the household (Kim and Sakamoto, 2008 ). These include job insecurity, work dissatisfaction, bankruptcy, forced home closure, wage reduction, and overdue medical, utilities, and credit card bills (Topa et al., 2018 ). Financial stress also leads to reduced wellbeing (Best, 2022 ) and causes enormous negative effects on overall life (Brzozowski and Spotton Visano, 2020 ). These arguments predict that financial behavior, directly or indirectly, influences individuals’ self-financial satisfaction, savings, spending, and investment behavior (Xiao and Porto, 2017 ). Undoubtedly it can be constructed that positive financial behavior plays an important role in defining individual SFW. However, there is a need to conduct comprehensive research focusing on the impact of explicit and implicit modes of parental financial socialization on the financial attitude and behavior of Gen-Z. Therefore, the current study grounded by family socialization theory (see Fig. 1 ) as a backdrop for understanding the influence of parental financial socialization, both explicitly and implicitly, on the financial attitude and behavior of Gen-Z.

Showing a conceptual model for the theory of family financial socialization.

Methodology

This study utilized a mixed-methods approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques based on the research objectives. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved data collection from parents, using semi-structured interviews. This technique provided a rich source of textual data leading to the identification of codes, categories, and themes explaining explicit parental financial socialization in Pakistani culture (Haq, 2015 ). The qualitative part is followed by a cross-sectional, close-ended questionnaire-based survey, a representative sample of Gen-Z, and provides information on whether explicit or implicit parental financial socialization which is more influential in shaping Gen-Zs’ financial behavior and wellbeing. For both qualitative and quantitative parts, the unit of analysis was an individual. However, mixed method techniques allowed data triangulation, and were collected from different sources (Bronstein and Kovacs, 2013 ; Haq, 2015 ; Levanon et al., 2021 ; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2012 ). The approach used aligns with the methodology employed by LeBaron et al. ( 2020 ), except for the fact that they conducted qualitative research across multiple generations, interviewing both sons and daughters and their parents and grandparents. However, the current study utilized a mixed-method approach, interviewing parents related to Gen-Zs and a questionnaire-based survey collected from the sample of Gen-Z (333) which was not limited to children of previously interviewed parents only.

Qualitative methodology

Most of the literature investigating the financial behavior of individuals relied on quantitative research methods (Diener, 2000 , Fan and Henager, 2022 ; Philippas and Avdoulas, 2020 ; Renaldo et al., 2020 ; She et al., 2021 ). While few researchers used qualitative methods (LeBaron et al., 2020 ), which helps better in exploring parents’ financial socialization and children’s financial behavior in greater depth. However, this study applied generalized qualitative research (Yin, 2015 ), through interviews with Gen-Zs’ parents. The data for this study were collected by conducting interviews with the parents of children who were born during 1995 to 2010.

Interviews were conducted with 35 parents, living in different areas of Pakistan, taking into account the diverse cultural, economic, and social backgrounds. This geographical and demographical diversity in the sample enhances the external validity of the study. The 35 parents who participated in the interviews were chosen from a pool of parents conveniently available for participation, using purposive convenience sampling. This sampling technique ensured a purposeful selection of willing participants, who could provide significant input for achieving the study’s research objectives (Marshall, 1996 ). The inclusion criteria for parents were having at least higher secondary education and having children belonging to Gen-Z.

Majority of the interviews were conducted in person, while a few were conducted online. Each interview’s duration was between 20 and 40 min. Before interviewing, the interviewees were given a brief detail of the project. The researcher interviewed after getting the interviewees’ informed consent. All the interviews were transcribed verbatim to maintain objective results. The sample comprised 20 male and 15 female participants, and the average age of participants was 42.5 years. Detailed attributes of some of the interviewees are shown in Table 1 .

Interview guide

The interview guide was designed to gain insights into parental financial socialization. Questions were framed to make interviewees comfortable in providing answers, leading to enriching descriptions rather than just surface explanations. The interviewees were asked to reflect on changes in their child’s financial attitude, behavior and wellbeing as a result of their financial socialization.

Data analysis procedure

NVivo 10 was used to evaluate the data in five stages; compilation, disassembling data, re-assembling data, interpretation, and conclusion (Yin, 2015 ). Before conducting interviews, a coding structure for template analysis was created based on the literature review, which was then improved by a methodical assessment of transcriptions and coding. Figure 2 shows the final version of the hierarchical coding system.

Final version of the hierarchical coding system.

Quantitative methodology

Research settings.

The researcher used a self-administered online questionnaire, created on Google Docs to gather data from individuals who were born from 1995 through 2010. A total of 333 individuals responded to the online survey studying in different educational institutions in Pakistan. However, the sample was not limited to children of previously interviewed parents. The sample size was calculated by applying prior sample estimation to avoid type-I and type-II errors. Purposive convenience sampling technique was used to access the participants from a pool of conveniently available Gen-Z as this technique is most useful in approaching respondents, particularly in survey-based research. Hence, the researcher approached the participants who were willing to participate and could provide significant input to achieve the research objectives of this study. The selection criteria for participants were; having at least higher secondary education; between 15 and 28 years of age; and being able to understand the English language, as the survey was in the English language. The parental socioeconomic characteristics of the sample Gen-Z are shown in Table 2 .

Measurement of variables

Subjective financial wellbeing.

The SFW of Gen-Z was evaluated by using eight items, five points Likert scale, coded 1–5, where 1 = low SFW and 5 = high SFW, adapted from Prawitz et al., ( 2006 ) consistent with the former studies of Gutter and Copur ( 2011 ) and Pandey et al. ( 2020 ). The reliability coefficient for SFW was 0.83 which exceeded the required threshold as suggested by Fabrigar et al. ( 1999 ).

Financial behavior was measured in line with Wagner and Walstad ( 2019 ), who opted from FINRA, USA. All questions summed up to create a 1–5 scale, where higher values showed more positive financial behavior and vice versa. The reliability coefficient for the financial behavior was 0.87 which exceeded the required threshold.

Financial attitude

A five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = highly undesirable to 5 = highly desirable, has been used to measure the financial attitude. These measurements are based on previous studies of (Hilgert et al., 2003 ; Shim et al., 2009 ; Xiao et al., 2006 ). The reliability coefficient for the financial behavior was 0.81 which exceeded the required threshold.

Financial goal importance

Financial goal importance has been measured in line with the previous studies of (Kasser and Ryan, 1996 ; Gardarsdottir et al., 2009 ), using nine items, five points Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very important). All the items have been selected from the aspiration index developed by Kasser and Ryan, ( 1996 ). A higher score reflects a stronger material aspiration. As recommended by Fabrigar et al. ( 1999 ), the reliability coefficient for the financial goal importance was 0.92 which exceeded the required threshold.

Parent’s socioeconomic characteristics

The study used two different socio-economic parental characteristics (separately for fathers and mothers), to analyze the importance of dynamic aspects of parental backgrounds. Education was coded into five levels: 1 = lower than high school, 2 = high school, 3 = college/associate, 4 = bachelor, and 5 = Master or higher. Likewise, parental occupation was measured in 5 levels: 1 = government-employee, 2 = private employee, 3 = business/self-employed, 4 = retired/out of the workforce, and 5 = others.

Parental financial socialization

Participants were asked to indicate whether they were included by their parents in the discussions about the importance of savings, family spending plans, participants’ spending, and the use of credit. A 5-point Likert scale with 1 being no discussion in any of the areas and 5 being yes, was used. These measurements align with the previous study of Shim et al. ( 2009 ).

Qualitative analysis and results

This section elaborates on the findings in four key areas. First, parental financial socialization, i.e., how parents develop the financial behavior of their children. Second, the perceived financial behavior of children experiencing different parental financial socialization. The third area entails the perceived subjective financial wellbeing of children. Fourth, the gender importance in the parental financial socialization process was highlighted. Figure 2 shows the hierarchical coding system, and Table 3 defines the key codes.

Most of the parents expressed a positive approach to the financial socialization of their children. Parents were asked questions on four dimensions, i.e., developing the saving habits of children, keeping them independent in financial decisions, involving them in domestic financial matters, and discussing finances with children. The frequency of these themes is shown in Table 4 .

Developing the saving habits of children

Though Pakistani households are currently facing a hyperinflationary environment, internal political turmoil, uncertain natural disasters, undefined fluctuation of foreign exchange rate, and an uncertain economic environment, modest responses are received from parents in developing children’s saving habits during growing age. Some of the respondents said that they always encouraged children to spend money rather than save as they were too young for that and did not want them to be deprived of their happiness of spending. Therefore, parents advised them to start saving on started their professional careers as they would have a lifetime for that.

My children used to save their money in piggy banks, in the early start they even used to save bank notes in it as well. When I saw this then I guided them to only save the coins and spend the bank notes. I never asked them to save money. I always encouraged them to spend the money that they used to have (P1-PhD-3).

Correspondingly, some parents encouraged their children to save money to buy things for their own needs.

Along with that, we are also helping them develop those habits. Since the beginning, we would tell her that if she has fifty rupees, try to at least twenty-five rupees and save the other twenty-five rupees in case of any emergency. Initially, it was hard for her, around the time she was a school-going student, but since then she has made a habit of it and now saves. Currently, she has her savings as well (P2-ACCA-1).

Keep them independent in financial decisions

Overall findings have reflected that children are not financially independent in purchasing decisions as they are not socialized, especially by parents. They are free from all financial issues and parents are supposed to make financial decisions.

I try to a great extent to prevent my daughter from being spoiled. Being a single child, she thinks, she has the right over all the belongings of her parents. So, I am over-conscious in realizing that it’s not easy to get the things she wants (P2-ACCA-1).

Many parents care about children’s choices, but the final decision on what to purchase is kept with the parents.

Yes, they are just dependent on what they want but never pay for it. But I have never made a difference. What I wear, I buy for them the same thing. So, they never feel disappointed (P7-Master-2).

Few parents kept children financially independent in making purchase decisions and believed that giving the children financial independence develops their financial behavior, but is challenging for middle-class or salaried-class families.

I have made my children independent but this is a challenge in today’s time as the youth is surrounded by social media and is influenced by different lifestyles. These kinds of extended personalities and lifestyles become a challenge for the middle class or the salaried class to maintain and hence I try to educate my children on these things (P8-Master-4).

Involving them in domestic financial matters

One of the ways parents used to financially socialize their children is by involving them in household financial discussions. Though few parents believed that indulging their children in financial matters may divert attention from studies, however, the majority of parents involved children in purchasing groceries or household items.

All the shopping and grocery are done by the children, I give them the money and they spend it on household items and I am unaware of what they are getting (P1-PhD-3).

In the same vein, parents developed better financial behavior in children, they used to encourage the participation of children in household economics. They also discussed and even involved children in the payment of utility bills, which enhanced the financial behavior of the growing child, leading to financial wellbeing.

So, during phases when the utility bills or electricity bills are too high where it exceeds my budget, I would ask her if she has any savings she can contribute. So that moment she would inform me that she had fifty thousand rupees in savings and that I could use them towards the bill payments (P8-PhD-1).

Discussing children finances with them

Conversing about children’s finances and questioning about their pocket money are vital factors in developing the financial behavior of children during their growing age. Most of the parents just gave their growing children limited pocket money with known venues to spend.

It is not fixed per month usually it becomes daily as well I give her a hundred rupees per day. Yes, I habitually ask about their spending on food how much they spend, and where they have spent (P2-ACCA-1).

Likewise, few parents gave children a fixed amount of pocket money at the start of each month and educate them on how to spend it.

we would give her around twenty-five hundred to five thousand rupees per month. She will have to make do with the money for a whole month. Now whether she spends it in one whole day or fifteen days is up to her. However, she has been very economical in her spending since a young age so she would normally avoid going out, but if she does go out, she can manage her money well (P8-Master-1).

Perceived financial behavior of children

Three factors emerged showing the financial behavior of the children i.e., managing pocket money, consumption behavior, and assisting families during the pandemic.

Managing pocket money

The second factor, identified from the findings, is the perceived financial behavior of the children experiencing different parental socialization. Parents were asked whether children managed expenses with pocket money or demanded extra money. Findings showed a mix of perceived financial behavior of the children in managing pocket money. One of the findings revealed that the perceived financial behavior of the children varied with their personalities.

The younger daughter does not ask for more money but the elder one complains that this amount is not sufficient for managing her expenditures and she demands an extra amount for her academy the same day in the evening (P4-Master-2).

Similarly, some informants also said that children saved their pocket money, rather than utilizing it. Such behavior turned from observing the controlled financial management behavior and limited financial resources of parents.

She normally avoids getting pocket money and carries lunch with her. All of my children are very sensible and mature they know how to cut their coats according to their clothes. My elder children get a thousand rupees at the start of the month and save money through committees. So, I also give them some extra amount for lunch (P5-Matric-2).

In the same vein, a few parents also said that they have controlled financial management in households i.e., they purchase all the refreshment items and even took them out for that, but they were not given any extra amount as pocket money. Therefore, children never asked for any extra demand and managed the amount given by the parents.

No, they do not demand extra money mostly but I have told them to ask for it whenever they need it. My wife inquired them about their spending, sometimes. She also takes them to KFC for fast food and all that but she does not give them direct pocket money. For some time, she buys something from outside for lunch. Further, she purchases refreshment stuff for them like biscuits and frozen food (P10-PhD-4).

Perceived consumption behavior

Perceived consumption behavior means how the children spend savings or pocket money. Parents were asked where their children spent pocket money. Most of the findings exhibited that the children spent pocket money on food items.

My children are very fond of eating outside their priority is to spend money on food, they used to spend much on eating out and ever since online delivery has taken over the traditional way of outing, they usually prefer home delivery over the phone or through the Food Panda app. They love to experience new restaurants and new dishes. Sometimes I used to pool in as well. They managed to do all this with the pocket money that was given to them (P3-PhD-2).

Moreover, findings also revealed that the children spent savings on buying mobile, laptops, books, or similar valuable things. Children showed positive financial behavior to relieve parents from financial stress.

She realized that I would not give her the extra amount, so for any financial need like books, mobile, etc., she usually used to save the amount. That’s how her savings habits are improved. More interestingly she has three different valets for that (P2-ACCA-1).

Assist the parents in crises

COVID-19 had a colossal impact on the financial behavior of households. Such stressful events cause families to face financial stressors. Thus, in coping with such events, parents revealed that children started various jobs to financially assist them.

Both my kids used to work online during the pandemic my eldest son is Hafiz-e-Quran and used to teach the Holy Quran online to different students. I guess he taught for almost three years. He used to teach online to students in the US and he used to get money through Western Union. Whatever he used to earn he used to give to us and only took his pocket money from his earnings to spend. The younger one was working as a freelancer and did different projects and similarly used to hand over his earnings to us. The children had the sense of responsibility to save and help us in contribution (P1-PhD-3).

A few parents also said that even though children did not start any job to assist them, they realized the financial situation of the family during stressors and showed intent to do so.

Yes, during her break after O’ level study, she starts thinking about doing something to make her financially independent. She even tried to start an online card or stationery business with her friend during COVID-19. But unluckily that not goes well. But she still wants to do something and even asks me to suggest it (P2-ACCA-1).

Perceived subjective financial wellbeing of children

The findings of the study suggested that parents perceived their children to be satisfied with families’ financial position. However, financial satisfaction is a product of better parental financial socialization. While interviewing the parents, two factors were identified i.e., financial satisfaction with the current family situation, and financial goals importance.

Satisfaction with parent’s current financial position

Parents were asked whether their children were satisfied with their current financial position or situation to examine the subjective financial wellbeing of their children. The findings of the research presented that most of the parents perceived their children to be satisfied with their current family financial situation. Though the children shared their needs/requirements sometimes, they did not aggressively demand money or compliance.

There were one or two instances where my children wished for something but due to my financial capacity, I declined. They would have felt bad for a moment or two but then after some thought, they realized it and moved on in their lives, there was no strong reaction to the decision. I have never felt in my life that it would be hard for me to manage the kids and my home and I have always felt that Almighty Allah will fulfill all my desires as I have a very strong faith. My children were always satisfied with my financial capacity (P1-PhD-3).

Findings also revealed that children were satisfied with family’s financial situation by observing parents’ financial position when they were growing. Thus, when inquired about how parents realized that children were satisfied with finances, parents said that they simply observed and did not hide anything from them.

There was a moment when I had bought land to build my house, I had spent all the money and savings on it and my niece’s wedding came up and I didn’t have money to go to the wedding, that was the only time in my life that I had borrowed some money from a close friend and after the arrangement of funds then only we attended the wedding. All this is known to my children. They know each n everything about me (P1-PhD-3).

Another factor, reflected in findings regarding perceived subjective financial wellbeing was financial goals’ importance. Parents were asked whether they had ever discussed with children the importance of ‘having money’ with children. Only a small number of parents said that they usually involved their children in such discussions. A key insight collected from the findings is fostering the social welfare of the society, rather than merely maintaining the status quo.

Yes, many times. I normally used to talk to her about the importance of good money in life. But along with this, I also realize that money is not everything but we need money for everything. You must have enough financial independence that you can help others, not to get help for others. Nothing is free in the universe. Therefore, you have to perform to get something. And I think this is a major thing that she is told regularly. Moreover, the major goal is to get financially strong in social welfare, not a status quo (P2-ACCA-1).

Similarly, while surveying the parents about conversations with children regarding the importance of financial goals, an additional element highlighted was better living standards.

To spend your life well and keep up with the latest generation it’s important to earn money because without money it’s very difficult to have a good life.so it’s very important to have a good education and money (P9-Master-3).

Gender importance in parental financial socialization

The fourth dimension explored by the study is gender importance in parental financial socialization. It refers to how females need to be more financially socialized than males or parental financial socialization is equally important for that. Many parents taught daughters more about finances because of the understanding that females handle the household finances.

I think that would be more important for females as she is responsible for household financial management. Though the major long-term financial decisions are taken by males but still, even as per the teaching of Islam, a female is a custodian of males’ income, So, she should and must take care of his money and manage and spend it in a better way (P1-PhD-3).

Correspondingly, few parents emphasized equal importance for both genders to be financially socialized as they believed that both have equal responsibility and requirements in running the household.

It’s very important for both because both have to work and live their lives. Due to the Islamic culture females don’t go out very often but still, they are trained to be financially trained. Both sons and daughters are very important to be financially aware of how the house runs (P8-Master-1).

Quantitative data analysis and results

Tables 5 – 18 show the results of regression analysis, indicating the impact of parental socio-economic characteristics and parental financial socialization on the financial goals, attitude, behavior, and subjective financial wellbeing of growing adults, in addition to the correlation analysis of the studied variable.

The study investigated the relationship between parental socioeconomic characteristics and children’s financial attitude, behavior, parental socialization, and financial wellbeing. A Pearson correlation coefficient was implied, which is appropriate for normally distributed data. The Pearson correlation coefficient between Gen-Z’s financial behavior and subjective financial wellbeing ( r  = 0.751) indicates a strong positive correlation. Similarly, the statistical value for the correlation coefficient between Gen-Z’s financial goals’ importance and financial behavior and subjective financial wellbeing was also found significant ( r  = 0.293, r  = 0.291) respectively. The p-values associated with these correlation coefficients were less than 0.01, indicating that the correlation is statistically significant. Results are shown in Table 5 . In addition, to assess the multicollinearity among the variables, Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) were implied. The values, as shown in Table 6 , suggest that for the most part, multicollinearity was not a major concern (VIF < 5).

Parental socioeconomic characteristics and Gen-Z’s financial goals importance

The ANOVA regression model (R 2  = 0.018) indicates negligible variance in Gen-Z’s financial goal’s importance as explained by the parental socioeconomic characteristics, i.e., parental education and occupation, included in the model. The F-statistic (1.486) is not significant ( p  > 0.05), indicating that parental socioeconomic variables, including in the model, are not a significant predictor of the Gen-Z’ financial goals’ importance, as shown in Tables 7 – 8 .

Table 9 shows the regression coefficients for Gen-Z’s financial goals’ importance. The statistical results revealed that there is no relationship between fathers’ education level and their Gen-Z’ financial goals’ importance ( β  = −0.076, p  > 0.05). The results suggest that fathers’ education level does not affect their growing adults’ financial goals’ importance.

Parental socioeconomic characteristics and Gen-Z’s financial behavior

The model summary ( R 2  = 0.013) shows the insignificant variance in Gen-Z’s financial behavior as influenced by the parental socioeconomic characteristics, i.e., parental education and occupation, included in the model as shown in Table 7 . Furthermore, the statistical results for ANOVA revealed an insignificant effect of parental socioeconomic characteristics on Gen-Z’s financial behavior ( F  = 1.080, p  > 0.05) as shown in Tables 10 – 11 .

Table 12 shows the regression coefficients for Gen-Z’s financial behavior. The statistical results show that there is no significant relationship between parents’ socioeconomic conditions, including their education and occupation on Gen-Z financial behavior. ( p  > 0.05). The results suggest that Gen-Z’s financial behavior is not influenced by their parent’s education level and occupation.

Parental socioeconomic characteristics and Gen-Z’s subjective financial wellbeing

Table 13 predicts that the subjective financial wellbeing of Gen-Z is not significantly influenced by their parents’ socioeconomic characteristics such as education level and occupation ( R 2  = 0.011). These findings are further supported by the statistical results of ANOVA ( F  = 0.872, p  > 0.05), as shown in Table 14 . Hence, none of the parents’ socioeconomic variables (education and occupation) have a significant impact on Gen-Z’ subjective financial wellbeing.

Parental socioeconomic characteristics and Gen-Z’s financial attitude

The model summary shows that parents’ socioeconomic characteristics do not influence the financial attitude of Gen-Z ( R 2  = 0.024, p  > 0.05) as shown in Table 16 . Furthermore, ANOVA and coefficient results (see Tables 17 – 18 ) indicate that fathers’ education has a negative influence on Gen-Z’s financial attitude ( β  = −0.121, p  < 0.05), showing that a unit change in fathers’ education level results in a (1.21-units) change in Gen-Z’s financial attitude. Likewise, the mother’s education and occupation have an insignificant impact on Gen-Z’s financial attitude ( β  = 0.091; β  = 0.081, p  > 0.05) respectively.

Parental financial socialization and Gen-Z’s financial goals importance, behavior, subjective wellbeing and attitude

The test of Between-Subject Effects was conducted to analyze the effect of parental financial socialization on Gen-Z’s financial attitude, behavior, and subjective financial wellbeing. The results showed that parental financial socialization had a significant effect on Gen-Z’s financial attitude only ( F  = 1.912, p  < 0.05). The F-value (1.912) indicates that the variance between the groups is greater than the variance within the groups. This suggests that there is a significant difference between the groups in terms of parental financial socialization. The p values for financial attitude ( p  < 0.05) suggest that this difference is unlikely to be due to chance. Therefore, the study concluded that parental financial socialization has a significant effect on Gen-Z’s financial attitude. These results (see Table 19 ) provide valuable insights into the relationship between parental financial socialization and Gen-Z’s financial attitude. Moreover, these results are further supported by estimated margin means graphs with parental financial socialization on the X-axis and financial outcomes (including financial attitude, behavior, goals, and subjective wellbeing) on the Y-axis. These graphs comprise the understanding of how parental financial socialization impacts these financial outcomes (see Figs. 3 – 6 ).

The estimated margin mean graphs.

This study strengthens the concept of family socialization theory, particularly in the context of the financial wellbeing of Gen-Z. The findings of the study support most of the previously conducted researches (Fan and Park, 2021 ; Ilyas and Djawahir, 2021 ; Lanz et al., 2020 ; LeBaron-Black et al., 2022 ; Philippas and Avdoulas, 2021 ; Shim et al., 2009 ; Sheng et al., 2022 ). This study targeted Gen-Z and the role of parental financial socialization in developing countries such as Pakistan, as individuals in these countries may be affected by unique regional, economic, and cultural aspects that influence their financial behavior and investment intentions, notably, a high inflationary environment, strong family system, emerging technology, extensive use of internet, social media, and complex cultural bindings. All of these may have an impact on the financial behavior and financial wellbeing of Gen-Z.

Theoretical significance of qualitative findings

This study has contributed by highlighting the change in the financial behavior of Gen-Z as a major part of the process of parental financial socialization. This study expands on the findings in the following four key areas. The first is the explicit parental financial socialization process, followed by the perceived financial behavior of their children. The third part is the perceived subjective financial wellbeing of the children followed by gender importance in the parental financial socialization process.

Explicit parental financial socialization process

We deduce from our qualitative findings that parents use different approaches to socialize their children financially such as involving them in the household financial discussion, keeping independent in the financial decision-making process, discussing children’s finances with them, and developing their saving habits (Furnham and Milner, 2017 ; Shim et al., 2009 ). The findings of the study explored that as far as explicit financial socialization is concerned, parents believed that involving children in financial matters would distract them from their studies. Similarly, through explicit parental financial socialization, the majority of parents included their children in the purchase of groceries or household items. Parents stated that they used to encourage their children’s participation in household economics to help them develop better financial behavior . Likewise, modest responses are received from parents in developing their children’s saving habits during their growing age.

Financial behavior is a powerful source of shaping Gen-Z’ financial wellbeing, as previously explored (Hira et al., 2013 ; LeBaron and Kelley, 2021 ; Webley and Nyhus, 2006 , 2013 ). The findings of this study provide valuable insights that parental financial socialization causes significant changes in a children financial behavior, specifically in managing pocket money, consumption behavior, and helping parents in crises. The findings showed that various children spent savings on mobile phones, laptops, computers, books, or other valuable items. Such behavior is a result of parent’s controlled financial management and limited financial resources. Moreover, stressful events like the COVID-19 pandemic and its ongoing impact on household finances put a strain on families’ finances. As a result, parents revealed that children began various jobs to financially assist parents. Though few of them did not begin working to help their parents, however, they were aware of the family’s financial situation during stressful times and expressed intention to do so.

Perceived subjective financial wellbeing of the children

Emerging adults having healthy financial behavior might be more financially satisfied with family’s financial position (Zimmerman, 1995 ). Financial wellbeing may decline if individuals do not control their financial behavior (Mahdzan et al., 2019 ; Xiao et al., 2014 ). Liu et al. ( 2022 ) argued that emerging adults who enact positive financial behavior are likely to be financially equipped and satisfied, and lead to the attainment of goals. While parents’ financial socialization was associated with healthy financial behavior and satisfaction of emerging adults (Damian et al., 2020 ), the current study found that parents perceived that the desirable financial behavior of growing child contributes to financial satisfaction with family finances. They believed that such subjective financial wellbeing of growing children is the result of parental financial socialization. Furthermore, findings also revealed that parents’ perception that children become satisfied with their financial position by observing parents’ financial situation.

Gender importance in the parental financial socialization process

Gender issues have gained immense importance in social sciences research over the years (Reshi and Sudha, 2023 ; Wang et al., 2023 ). It accommodates gender differences in various aspects of human behavior, and the field of finance is no exception. Males were more encouraged to participate in financial decisions in comparison to females (Deenanath et al., 2019 ; LeBaron et al., 2020 ; Lep et al., 2022 ), which leads to males receiving greater exposure to financial decisions and exhibiting a higher propensity to engage in financial matters (Cupák et al., 2022 ; Halko et al., 2012 ). The study investigated the importance of gender in parental financial socialization. Parents emphasized the importance of financial socialization for both genders as they believed that both were equally responsible for managing the household. However, parents who observe traditional gender roles within their households are more likely to teach their daughters about finances under the assumption that they will eventually take responsibility for managing household expenses (Boateng et al., 2014 ; Yusof, 2015 ). Moreover, parents also believed that empowering females in the household decision-making process impacts their wellbeing (Jabeen et al., 2020 ; Lee et al., 2020 ; Solbes-Canales et al., 2020 ). Hence, parental financial socialization was found a significant antecedent of males’ and females’ financial behavior and wellbeing.

The theoretical significance of quantitative findings

Although the body of literature on financial wellbeing has developed, only a few studies have shed light on the subjective financial wellbeing using the comparative analysis of both explicit and implicit parental financial socialization, particularly in the setting of Gen-Z in Asia-Pacific developing countries like Pakistan. This study augments the existing literature by determining the key antecedents of subjective financial wellbeing (SFW) among Gen-Z, considering the fathers’ and mothers’ occupations and education levels as parental socioeconomic characteristics and purposive financial socialization. One of the major findings of the study revealed that father’s education level negatively influenced the Gen-Z’ financial attitude. These findings are aligned with the previous studies of (Andrea, 2023 ; Salikin et al., 2012 ), and supported by the Theory of Reactance by Jack Brehm, ( 1966 ), which documented that Gen-Zs with highly educated fathers may rebel against perceived financial attitude and behavior. Further findings revealed that parents’ socioeconomic characteristics and parental financial socialization have an insignificant impact on Gen-Z’s financial behavior and wellbeing because of their unique characteristics to elders.

Gen-Z was born with the onset of widespread, ubiquitous internet access through a variety of portable devices (Daoud et al., 2020 ; López-Castro and Priegue, 2019 ). Hence, they are known as digital natives, profoundly molded by the progression of technology (Gabrielova and Buchko, 2021 ; Shorey et al., 2021 ; Seemiller and Grace, 2017 ). However, technological evolution is a double-edged sword. Besides the fact that the use of the internet is no longer a luxury, its excess leads to internet addiction. The literature indicates an increasing internet addiction among the growing number of Gen-Z which affects mental health and quality of life (Mahabal, 2023 ). Gen-Z today is majorly using the internet as a tool to build their virtual identity and withhold the personalities they are not confident about. As a result, they consider their online persona more important than the real one (Back et al., 2010 ; Stahl and Literat, 2023 ). Hence, it is evident that Gen-Z favors the virtual world, and finds it a safe place to experiment with their identities (Djafarova and Foots, 2022 ; Hernandez-Pozas and Carreon-Flores, 2019 ). Furthermore, Gen-Z experiences continuous exposure to well-crafted portrayals of lifestyle, affluence, and material things. Social media platforms amplify the influence of peer pressure on Gen-Z as they are consistently inundated with images and messages that endorse materialism and material affluence. Both influencers and celebrities frequently promote products and experiences that encourage a culture of excessive spending and luxury, intensifying the influence of peer pressure to conform to trends and acquire costly things. Engaging in online consumerism, digital subscriptions, and virtual transactions makes it a cumbersome task for parents to draw a fine line between giving them financial independence and ensuring their financially responsible behavior. This constant connectivity to the virtual world and extensive and permeating internet access is creating unique challenges to parenting and financial socializing of Gen-Z (Oerther and Oerther, 2021 ).

Managerial implication

The study recommended that educational institutes must emphasize designing a curriculum that incorporates the concepts of personal financial management, budgeting, investing, and debt management. In addition to this, they also need to collaborate with parents through workshops, seminars, and informational sessions to create a holistic approach to parental financial socialization of Gen-Z. Likewise, policymakers can create programs and interventions for parents that foster parental financial socialization of Gen-Z. It will help them in shaping Gen-Z’s financial behavior and induce self-financial confidence for their better future. Moreover, the improved saving and investing behavior of Gen-Z has a momentous impact on the economy as a whole, as they will foster a technology-driven, sustainable, and more socially responsible financial environment.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

The study purposively selected 333 individuals from the pool of conveniently available Gen-Z population to address the research objective of the study. Future researchers can include three generations of participants, as suggested by LeBaron et al. ( 2020 ). Furthermore, the results of this study supported behavioral changes in Gen-Z through parental financial socialization process. However, future researchers may examine Gen-Z’s financial behavioral changes through the internet and social media. Moreover, this study provides a base for future qualitative research which may include other generations in the sample for more insights into parental financial socialization in developing countries.

This study is possibly the first mixed-method attempt to explore the significant role of explicit and implicit parental financial socialization in shaping Gen-Zs’ financial attitudes, behavior, and wellbeing in developing countries like Pakistan. The findings of the study augmented the concept of family financial socialization theory by exploring that explicit parental financial socialization has a significant influence on Gen-Z’s financial attitude. However, financial behavior and well-being of Gen-Zs might not be directly influenced by parental financial socialization due to various other factors such as peer interaction, media exposure, and internet influence. Furthermore, parents’ education and occupation are the indicators of socioeconomic status, they may not fully cover the nuances of parents’ financial socialization.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).

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Abdul Ghafoor, K., Akhtar, M. Parents’ financial socialization or socioeconomic characteristics: which has more influence on Gen-Z’s financial wellbeing?. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 522 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03007-3

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The Importance of Referencing

Ario santini.

1 University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Tîrgu Mureș, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania

2 Hon Fellow, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

It is imperative that authors of medical papers give fitting credit to the sources that they quote in their manuscripts. Frequently this is not the case, and a wrong, inappropriate or unsuitable citation often blights the quality of a paper. Many concerns can proceed from questions relating to improper citations. These matters may be directed at a personal level or may have a bearing on the general research community. They can range from doubt being levied at the individual’s academic ability, to his/her academic honesty, or even the suggestion of potential plagiarism. Meticulous referencing of sources will eliminate all of these concerns.

The stamp of a good research worker is attention to detail at all levels of his/her research. Attention to detail cultivates good habits and the detail required in referencing and preparing a bibliography focuses attention on the whole research procedure. It aids scientific thought and analysis and makes for better research reporting.

Good referencing includes attention to detail such as correct page numbering, the spelling of author’s names and the accuracy of relevant facts that will be stated in the paper. Attention to referencing not only makes you a better researcher but enhances your reputation amongst editors, reviewers and readers.

An editor or reader may interpret poor referencing as a sign of intellectual laziness, unclear thinking, and inaccurate writing. When you cite sources correctly, you leave no question in your readers’ minds regarding your point. By citing precisely and accurately, the phrase “It is said” need ever be used in your academic manuscript.An excellent bibliography shows off your scientific knowledge. An extensive bibliography is the hallmark of a widely read and well-informed clinician or scientist.

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Plagiarism is a prominent problem encountered in the academic process and is one of the most common causes of compromising the academic integrity of the author. Sources must be cited in an appropriate form. Copying, using, or the misuse of other people’s ideas, words or concepts, without proper referencing is prohibited. It is not enough to change a few words in a phrase from the source material into “own words”. Changing the word-order of a sentence is unacceptable, as is the use of synonyms. Referencing and references, signify the quality of the work, detail the primary sources and are indicative of the extent of information on the subject. Proper referencing removes any question of plagiarism.

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Your manuscript is much more likely to survive the rigours of the review process with minimal criticism and positive feedback if all references are contemporaneous, refer to a primary source and have been accurately and correctly cited.

Additional Reading

• Open access
• Published: 10 April 2024

Development of an index system for the scientific literacy of medical staff: a modified Delphi study in China

• Shuyu Liang 2   na1 ,
• Ziyan Zhai 2   na1 ,
• Xingmiao Feng 2 ,
• Xiaozhi Sun 1 ,
• Jingxuan Jiao 1 ,
• Yuan Gao 1   na2 &
• Kai Meng   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1467-7904 2 , 3   na2  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  397 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Scientific research activity in hospitals is important for promoting the development of clinical medicine, and the scientific literacy of medical staff plays an important role in improving the quality and competitiveness of hospital research. To date, no index system applicable to the scientific literacy of medical staff in China has been developed that can effectively evaluate and guide scientific literacy. This study aimed to establish an index system for the scientific literacy of medical staff in China and provide a reference for improving the evaluation of this system.

In this study, a preliminary indicator pool for the scientific literacy of medical staff was constructed through the nominal group technique ( n  = 16) with medical staff. Then, two rounds of Delphi expert consultation surveys ( n  = 20) were conducted with clinicians, and the indicators were screened, revised and supplemented using the boundary value method and expert opinions. Next, the hierarchical analysis method was utilized to determine the weights of the indicators and ultimately establish a scientific literacy indicator system for medical staff.

Following expert opinion, the index system for the scientific literacy of medical staff featuring 2 first-level indicators, 9 second-level indicators, and 38 third-level indicators was ultimately established, and the weights of the indicators were calculated. The two first-level indicators were research literacy and research ability, and the second-level indicators were research attitude (0.375), ability to identify problems (0.2038), basic literacy (0.1250), ability to implement projects (0.0843), research output capacity (0.0747), professional capacity (0.0735), data-processing capacity (0.0239), thesis-writing skills (0.0217), and ability to use literature (0.0181).

Conclusions

This study constructed a comprehensive scientific literacy index system that can assess medical staff's scientific literacy and serve as a reference for evaluating and improving their scientific literacy.

Peer Review reports

Due to the accelerated aging of the population and the growing global demand for healthcare in the wake of epidemics, there is an urgent need for medicine to provide greater support and protection. Medical scientific research is a critical element in promoting medical science and technological innovation, as well as improving clinical diagnosis and treatment techniques. It is the main driving force for the development of healthcare [ 1 ].

Medical personnel are highly compatible with clinical research. Due to their close interaction with patients, medical staff are better equipped to identify pertinent clinical research issues and actually implement clinical research projects [ 2 ]. Countries have created favorable conditions for the research and development of medical personnel by providing financial support, developing policies, and offering training courses [ 3 , 4 ]. However, some clinical studies have shown that the ability of most medical staff does not match current health needs and cannot meet the challenges posed by the twenty-first century [ 5 ]. It is clear that highly skilled professionals with scientific literacy are essential for national and social development [ 6 ]. Given the importance of scientific research in countries and hospitals, it is crucial to determine the level of scientific research literacy that medical personnel should possess and how to train them to acquire the necessary scientific research skills. These issues have significant practical implications.

Scientific literacy refers to an individual's ability to engage in science-related activities [ 7 ]. Some scholars suggest that the scientific literacy of medical personnel encompasses the fundamental qualities required for scientific research work, encompassing three facets: academic moral accomplishment, scientific research theory accomplishment, and scientific research ability accomplishment [ 8 ]. The existing research has focused primarily on the research capabilities of medical staff. According to Rillero, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, communication skills, and the ability to interpret data are the four core components of scientific literacy [ 9 ]. The ability to perform scientific research in nursing encompasses a range of abilities, including identifying problems, conducting literature reviews, designing and conducting scientific research, practicing scientific research, processing data, and writing papers [ 10 ]. Moule and Goodman proposed a framework of skills that research-literate nurses should possess, such as critical thinking capacity, analytical skills, searching skills, research critique skills, the ability to read and critically appraise research, and an awareness of ethical issues [ 11 ]. Several researchers have developed self-evaluation questionnaires to assess young researchers' scientific research and innovative abilities in the context of university-affiliated hospitals (UHAs) [ 12 ]. The relevant indicators include sensitivity to problems, sensitivity to cutting-edge knowledge, critical thinking, and other aspects. While these indicators cover many factors, they do not consider the issue of scientific research integrity in the medical field. The lack of detailed and targeted indicators, such as clinical resource collection ability and interdisciplinary cooperation ability, hinders the effective measurement of the current status of scientific literacy among medical staff [ 12 ]. In conclusion, the current research on the evaluation indicators of scientific literacy among medical personnel is incomplete, overlooking crucial humanistic characteristics, attitudes, and other moral literacy factors. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a comprehensive and systematic evaluation index to effectively assess the scientific literacy of medical staff.

Therefore, this study utilized a literature search and nominal group technique to screen the initial evaluation index and subsequently constructed an evaluation index system for medical staff's scientific research literacy utilizing the Delphi method. This index system would serve as a valuable tool for hospital managers, aiding them in the selection, evaluation, and training of scientific research talent. Additionally, this approach would enable medical personnel to identify their own areas of weakness and implement targeted improvement strategies.

Patient and public involvement

Patients and the public were not involved in this research.

Study design and participants

In this study, an initial evaluation index system was developed through a literature review and nominal group technique. Subsequently, a more comprehensive and scientific index system was constructed by combining qualitative and quantitative analysis utilizing the Delphi method to consult with experts. Finally, the hierarchical analysis method and the percentage weight method were employed to empower the index system.

The program used for this study is shown in Fig.  1 .

Study design. AHP, analytic hierarchy process

Establishing the preliminary indicator pool

Search process.

A literature search was performed in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases to collect the initial evaluation indicators. The time span ranged from the establishment of the database to July 2022. We used a combination of several MeSH terms in our searches:(("Medical Staff"[Mesh] OR "Nurses"[Mesh] OR "Physicians"[Mesh])) AND (("Literacy"[Mesh]) OR "Aptitude"[Mesh]). We also used several Title/Abstract searches, including keywords such as: Evaluation, scientific literacy, research ability.

The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1)The subjects were nurses, medicial staff and other personnel engaged in the medical industry; (2) Explore topics related to scientific literacy, such as research ability, and literature that can clarify the structure or dependency between indicators of scientific literacy; (3) Select articles published in countries such as China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada; (4) Research published in English or Chinese is considered to be eligible. The exclusion criteria are as follows: (1) indicators not applicable to medical staff; (2) Conference abstracts, case reports or review papers; (3) Articles with repeated descriptions; (4) There are no full-text articles or grey literature. A total of 78 articles were retrieved and 60 were retained after screening according to inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The research was conducted by two graduate students and two undergraduate students who participated in the literature search and screening. The entire research process was supervised and guided by one professor. All five members were from the fields of social medicine and health management. The professor was engaged in hospital management and health policy research for many years.

Nominal group technique

The nominal group technique was introduced at Hospital H in Beijing in July 2022. This hospital, with over 2,500 beds and 3,000 doctors, is a leading comprehensive medical center also known for its educational and research achievements, including numerous national research projects and awards.

The interview questions were based on the research question: What research literacy should medical staff have? 16 clinicians and nurses from Hospital H were divided into 2 equal groups and asked to provide their opinions on important aspects of research literacy based on their positions and experiences. Once all participants had shared their thoughts, similar responses were merged and polished. If anyone had further inputs after this, a second round of interviews was held until no new inputs were given. The entire meeting, including both rounds, was documented by researchers with audio recordings on a tape recorder.

Scientific literacy dimensions

Based on the search process, the research group extracted 58 tertiary indicators. To ensure the practicality and comprehensiveness of the indicators, the Nominal group technique was used on the basis of the literature search. Panelists summarized the entries shown in the interviews and merged similar content to obtain 32 third-level indicators. The indicators obtained from the literature search were compared. Several indicators with similar meanings, such as capture information ability, language expression ability, communication ability, and scientific research integrity, were merged. Additionally, the indicators obtained from the literature search, such as scientific research ethics, database use ability, feasibility and analysis ability, were added to the 15 indicators. A total of 47 third-level indicators were identified.

Fengling Dai and colleagues developed an innovation ability index system with six dimensions covering problem discovery, information retrieval, research design, practice, data analysis, and report writing, which represents the whole of innovative activity. Additionally, the system includes an innovation spirit index focusing on motivation, thinking, emotion, and will, reflecting the core of the innovation process in terms of competence [ 13 ]. Liao et al. evaluated the following five dimensions in their study on scientific research competence: literature processing, experimental manipulation, statistical analysis, manuscript production, and innovative project design [ 14 ]. Mohan claimed that scientific literacy consists of four core components: problem solving, critical thinking, communication skills, and the ability to interpret data [ 15 ].

This study structured scientific literacy into 2 primary indicators (research literacy and research competence) and 9 secondary indicators (basic qualifications, research ethics, research attitude, problem identification, literature use, professional capacity, subject implementation, data processing, thesis writing, and research output).

Using the Delphi method to develop an index system

Expert selection.

This study used the Delphi method to distribute expert consultation questionnaires online, allowing experts to exchange opinions anonymously to ensure that the findings were more desirable and scientific. No fixed number of experts is required for a Delphi study, but the more experts involved, the more stable the results will be [ 16 ]; this method generally includes 15 to 50 experts [ 17 ]. We selected clinicians from several tertiary hospitals in the Beijing area to serve as Delphi study consultants based on the following inclusion criteria: (1) they had a title of senior associate or above; (2) they had more than 10 years of work experience in the field of clinical scientific research, and (3) they were presiding over national scientific research projects. The exclusion criteria were as follows: (1) full-time scientific researchers, and (2) personnel in hospitals who were engaged only in management. To ensure that the selected experts were representative, this study selected 20 experts from 14 tertiary hospitals affiliated with Capital Medical University, Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine according to the inclusion criteria; the hospitals featured an average of 1,231 beds each, and 9 hospitals were included among the 77 hospitals in the domestic comprehensive hospital ranking (Fudan Hospital Management Institute ranking). The experts represented various specialties and roles from different hospitals, including cardiology, neurosurgery, neurology, ear and throat surgery, head and neck surgery, radiology, imaging, infection, vascular interventional oncology, pediatrics, general practice, hematology, stomatology, nephrology, urology, and other related fields. This diverse group included physicians, nurses, managers, and vice presidents. The selected experts had extensive clinical experience, achieved numerous scientific research accomplishments and possessed profound knowledge and experience in clinical scientific research. This ensured the reliability of the consultation outcomes.

Design of the expert consultation questionnaire

The Delphi survey for experts included sections on their background, familiarity with the indicator system, system evaluation, and opinions. Experts rated indicators on importance, feasibility, and sensitivity using a 1–10 scale and their own familiarity with the indicators on a 1–5 scale. They also scored their judgment basis and impact on a 1–3 scale, considering theoretical analysis, work experience, peer understanding, and intuition. Two rounds of Delphi surveys were carried out via email with 20 experts to evaluate and suggest changes to the indicators. Statistical coefficients were calculated to validate the Delphi process. Feedback from the first round led to modifications and the inclusion of an AHP questionnaire for the second round. After the second round, indicators deemed less important were removed, and expert discussion finalized the indicator weights based on their relative importance scores. This resulted in the development of an index system for medical staff scientific literacy. The questionnaire is included in Additional file 1 (first round) and Additional file 2 (second round).

Using the boundary value method to screen the indicators

In this study, the boundary value method was utilized to screen the indicators of medical staff's scientific literacy, and the importance, feasibility, and sensitivity of each indicator were measured using the frequency of perfect scores, the arithmetic mean, and the coefficient of variation, respectively. When calculating the frequency of perfect scores and arithmetic means, the boundary value was set as "mean-SD," and indicators with scores higher than this value were retained. When calculating the coefficient of variation, the cutoff value was set to "mean + SD," and indicators with values below this threshold were retained.

The principles of indicator screening are as follows:

To evaluate the importance of the indicators, if none of the boundary values of the three statistics met the requirements, the indicators were deleted.

If an indicator has two aspects, importance, feasibility, or sensitivity, and each aspect has two or more boundary values that do not meet the requirements, then the indicator is deleted.

If all three boundary values for an indicator meet the requirements, the research group discusses the modification feedback from the experts and determines whether the indicator should be used.

The results of the two rounds of boundary values are shown in Table  1 .

Using the AHP to assign weights

After the second round of Delphi expert consultations, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weights of the two first-level indicators and the nine second-level indicators. The weights of the 37 third-level indicators were subsequently calculated via the percentage weight method. The AHP, developed by Saaty in the 1980s, is used to determine the priority and importance of elements constituting the decision-making hierarchy. It is based on multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) and determines the importance of decision-makers' judgments based on weights derived from pairwise comparisons between elements. In the AHP, pairwise comparisons are based on a comparative evaluation in which each element's weight in the lower tier is compared with that of other lower elements based on the element in the upper tier [ 18 ].

AHP analysis involves the following steps:

Step 1: Establish a final goal and list related elements to construct a hierarchy based on interrelated criteria.

Step 2: Perform a pairwise comparison for each layer to compare the weights of each element. Using a score from 1 to 9, which is the basic scale of the AHP, each pair is compared according to the expert’s judgment, and the importance is judged [ 19 , 20 ].

Yaahp software was employed to analyze data by creating a judgment matrix based on the experts' scores and hierarchical model. The index system weights were obtained by combining the experts' scores. The percentage weight method used experts' importance ratings from the second round to calculate weights, ranking indicators by importance, calculating their scores based on frequency of ranking, and determining weighting coefficients by dividing these scores by the total of all third-level indicators' scores. The third-level indicator weighting coefficients were then calculated by multiplying the coefficients [ 21 ].

Data analysis

Expert positivity coefficient.

The expert positivity coefficient is indicated by the effective recovery rate of the expert consultation questionnaire, which represents the level of expert positivity toward this consultation and determines the credibility and scientific validity of the questionnaire results. Generally, a questionnaire with an effective recovery rate of 70% is considered very good [ 22 ].

In this study, 20 questionnaires were distributed in both rounds of Delphi expert counseling, and all 20 were effectively recovered, resulting in a 100% effective recovery rate. Consequently, the experts provided positive feedback on the Delphi counseling.

Expert authority coefficient (CR)

The expert authority coefficient (Cr) is the arithmetic mean of the judgment coefficient (Ca) and the familiarity coefficient (Cs), namely, Cr =  \(\frac{({\text{Ca}}+{\text{Cs}})}{2}\) . The higher the degree of expert authority is, the greater the predictive accuracy of the indicator. A Cr ≥ 0.70 was considered to indicate an acceptable level of confidence [ 23 ]. Ca represents the basis on which the expert makes a judgment about the scenario in question, while Cs represents the expert's familiarity with the relevant problem [ 24 ].

Ca is calculated on the basis of experts' judgments of each indicator and the magnitude of its influence. In this study, experts used "practical experience (0.4), "theoretical analysis (0.3), "domestic and foreign peers (0.2)" and "intuition (0.1)" as the basis for judgment and assigned points according to the influence of each basis for judgment on the experts' judgment. Ca = 1 when the basis for judgment has a large influence on the experts, and Ca = 0.5 when the influence of the experts' judgment is at a medium level. When no influence on expert judgment was evident, Ca = 0 [ 25 ] (Table  2 ).

Cs refers to the degree to which the expert was familiar with the question. This study used the Likert scale method to score experts’ familiarity with the question on a scale ranging from 0 to 1 (1 = very familiar, 0.75 = more familiar, 0.5 = moderately familiar, 0.25 = less familiar, 0 = unfamiliar). The familiarity coefficient for each expert (the average familiarity for each indicator) was calculated. The average familiarity coefficient was subsequently computed [ 26 ].

The Cr value of the primary indicator in this study was 0.83, and the Cr value of the secondary indicator was 0.82 (> 0.7); hence, the results of the expert consultation were credible and accurate, as shown in Table  3 .

The degree of expert coordination is an important indicator used to judge the consistency among various experts regarding indicator scores. This study used the Kendall W coordination coefficient test to determine the degree of expert coordination. A higher Kendall W coefficient indicates a greater degree of expert coordination and greater consistency in expert opinion, and P  <  0.05 indicates that the difference is significant [ 26 ]. The results of the three-dimensional harmonization coefficient test for each indicator in the two rounds of the expert consultation questionnaire were valid ( p  <  0.01 ), emphasizing the consistency of the experts' scores. The values of the Kendall W coordination coefficients for both rounds are shown in Table  4 .

Basic information regarding the participants

The 20 Delphi experts who participated in this study were predominantly male (80.0%) rather than female (20.0%). In addition, the participants’ ages were mainly concentrated in the range of 41–50 years old (60.0%). The majority of the experts were doctors by profession (85.0%), and their education and titles were mainly doctoral degree (90.0%) and full senior level (17.0%). The experts also exhibited high academic achievement in their respective fields and had many years of working experience, with the majority having between 21 and 25 years of experience (40.0%) (Table  5 ).

Index screening

The boundary value method was applied to eliminate indicators, leading to the removal of 6 third-level indicators in the first round. One of these, the ability to use statistical software, was associated with a more significant second-level indicator involving data processing, which was kept after expert review. Six indicators were merged into three indicators due to duplication, and 5 third-level indicators were added, resulting in 2 primary indicators, 10 secondary indicators, and 43 third-level indicators.

In the second round of Delphi expert consultation, 5 third-level indicators were deleted, as shown in Additional file 3 , and only one third-level indicator, "Scientific spirit", remained under the secondary indicator "research attitude". The secondary indicator "Research attitude" was combined with "Research ethics" and the third-level indicator "Scientific spirit" was also considered part of "Research ethics". After expert discussion, these were merged into a new secondary indicator "Research attitude" with three third-level indicators: "Research ethics", "Research integrity", and "Scientific spirit". The final index system included two primary indicators, nine secondary indicators, and thirty-eight third-level indicators, as shown in Additional File 3 .

Final index system with weights

The weights of the two primary indexes, research literacy and research ability, were equal. This was determined using the hierarchical analysis method and the percentage weight method based on the results of the second round of Delphi expert consultation (Table  6 ). The primary indicator of research literacy encompasses the fundamental qualities and attitudes medical staff develop over time, including basic qualifications and approach to research. The primary indicator of research ability refers to medical professionals' capacity to conduct scientific research in new areas using suitable methods, as well as their skills needed for successful research using scientific methods.

In this study, the Delphi method was employed, and after two rounds of expert consultation, in accordance with the characteristics and scientific research requirements of medical staff in China, an index system for the scientific literacy of medical staff in China was constructed. The index system for medical staff's scientific literacy in this study consists of 2 first-level indicators, 9 second-level indicators, and 38 third-level indicators. Medical institutions at all levels can use this index system to scientifically assess medical staff's scientific literacy.

In 2014, the Joint Task Force for Clinical Trial Competency (JTF) published its Core Competency Framework [ 27 ]. The Framework focuses more on the capacity to conduct clinical research. These include principles such as clinical research and quality practices for drug clinical trials. However, this framework does not apply to the current evaluation of scientific literacy in hospitals. Because these indicators do not apply to all staff members, there is a lack of practical scientific research, such as information about the final paper output. Therefore, the experts who constructed the index system in this study came from different specialties, and the indicators can be better applied to scientific researchers in all fields. This approach not only addresses clinical researchers but also addresses the concerns of hospital managers, and the indicators are more applicable.

The weighted analysis showed that the primary indicators "research literacy" and "research ability" had the same weight (0.50) and were two important components of scientific literacy. Research ability is a direct reflection of scientific literacy and includes the ability to identify problems, the ability to use literature, professional capacity, subject implementation capacity, data-processing capacity, thesis-writing skills, and research output capacity. Only by mastering these skills can medical staff carry out scientific research activities more efficiently and smoothly. The ability to identify problems refers to the ability of medical staff to obtain insights into the frontiers of their discipline and to identify and ask insightful questions. Ratten claimed that only with keen insight and sufficient sensitivity to major scientific issues can we exploit the opportunities for innovation that may lead to breakthroughs [ 28 ]. Therefore, it is suggested that in the process of cultivating the scientific literacy of medical staff, the ability to identify problems, including divergent thinking, innovative sensitivity, and the ability to produce various solutions, should be improved. Furthermore, this study included three subentries of the secondary indicator "research attitude", namely, research ethics, research integrity, and scientific spirit. This is likely because improper scientific research behavior is still prevalent. A study conducted in the United States and Europe showed that the rate of scientific research misconduct was 2% [ 13 ]. A small survey conducted in Indian medical schools and hospitals revealed that 57% of the respondents knew that someone had modified or fabricated data for publication [ 28 ]. The weight of this index ranked first in the secondary indicators, indicating that scientific attitude is an important condition for improving research quality, relevance, and reliability. Countries and hospitals should develop, implement, and optimize policies and disciplinary measures to combat academic misconduct.

In addition, the third-level indicator "scheduling ability" under the second-level indicator "basic qualification" has a high weight, indicating that medical staff attach importance to management and distribution ability in the context of scientific research. Currently, hospitals face several problems, such as a shortage of medical personnel, excessive workload, and an increase in the number of management-related documents [ 29 , 30 ]. These factors result in time conflicts between daily responsibilities and scientific research tasks, thereby presenting significant obstacles to the allocation of sufficient time for scientific inquiry [ 31 ]. Effectively arranging clinical work and scientific research time is crucial to improving the overall efficiency of scientific research. In the earlier expert interviews, most medical staff believed that scientific research work must be combined with clinical work rather than focused only on scientific research. Having the ability to make overall arrangements is essential to solving these problems. The high weight given to the second-level index of 'subject implementation capacity', along with its associated third-level indicators, highlights the challenges faced by young medical staff in obtaining research subjects. Before implementing a project, researchers must thoroughly investigate, analyze, and compare various aspects of the research project, including its technical, economic, and engineering aspects. Moreover, potential financial and economic benefits, as well as social impacts, need to be predicted to determine the feasibility of the project and develop a research plan [ 32 ]. However, for most young medical staff in medical institutions, executing such a project can be challenging due to their limited scientific research experience [ 33 ]. A researcher who possesses these skills can truly carry out independent scientific research.

The weights of the second-level index "research output capacity" cannot be ignored. In Chinese hospitals, the ability to produce scientific research output plays a certain role in employees’ ability to obtain rewards such as high pay, and this ability is also used as a reference for performance appraisals [ 34 ]. The general scientific research performance evaluation includes the number of projects, scientific papers and monographs, scientific and technological achievements, and patents. In particular, the publication of papers is viewed as an indispensable aspect of performance appraisal by Chinese hospitals [ 35 ]. Specifically, scientific research papers are the carriers of scientific research achievements and academic research and thus constitute an important symbol of the level of medical development exhibited by medical research institutions; they are thus used as recognized and important indicators of scientific research output [ 36 ]. This situation is consistent with the weight evaluation results revealed by this study.

The results of this study are important for the training and management of the scientific research ability of medical personnel. First, the index system focuses not only on external characteristics such as scientific knowledge and skills but also on internal characteristics such as individual traits, motivation, and attitudes. Therefore, when building a research team and selecting and employing researchers, hospital managers can use the index system to comprehensively and systematically evaluate the situation of researchers, which is helpful for optimizing the allocation of a research team, learning from each other's strengths, and strengthening the strength of the research team. Second, this study integrates the content of existing research to obtain useful information through in-depth interviews with medical staff and constructs an evaluation index system based on Delphi expert consultation science, which comprehensively includes the evaluation of the whole process of scientific research activities. These findings can provide a basis for medical institutions to formulate scientific research training programs, help medical personnel master and improve scientific research knowledge and skills, and improve their working ability and quality. Moreover, the effectiveness of the training can also be evaluated according to the system.

In China, with the emergence of STEM rankings, hospitals pay more and more attention to the scientific research performance of medical personnel. Scientific literacy not only covers the abilities of medical personnel engaged in scientific research, but also reflects their professional quality in this field. Having high quality medical personnel often means that they have excellent scientific research ability, and their scientific research performance will naturally rise. In view of this,,medical institutions can define the meaning of third-level indicators and create Likert scales to survey medical staff. Based on the weights assigned to each indicator, comprehensive scores can be calculated to evaluate the level of scientific literacy among medical staff. Through detailed data analysis, they can not only reveal their shortcomings in scientific research ability and quality, but also provide a strong basis for subsequent training and promotion. Through targeted inspection, we can not only promote the comprehensive improvement of the ability of medical staff, but also promote the steady improvement of their scientific research performance, and inject new vitality into the scientific research cause of hospitals.

Limitations

This study has several limitations that need to be considered. First, the participants were only recruited from Beijing (a city in China), potentially lacking geographical diversity. We plan to select more outstanding experts from across the country to participate. Second, the index system may be more suitable for countries with medical systems similar to those of China. When applying this system in other countries, some modifications may be necessary based on the local context. Last, While this study has employed scientific methods to establish the indicator system, the index system has yet to be implemented on a large sample of medical staff. Therefore, the reliability and validity of the index system must be confirmed through further research. In conclusion, it is crucial to conduct further detailed exploration of the effectiveness and practical application of the index system in the future.

This study developed an evaluation index system using the Delphi method to assess the scientific literacy of medical staff in China. The system comprises two primary indicators, nine secondary indicators, and thirty-eight third-level indicators, with each index assigned a specific weight. The index system emphasizes the importance of both attitudes and abilities in the scientific research process for medical staff and incorporates more comprehensive evaluation indicators. In the current era of medical innovation, enhancing the scientific literacy of medical staff is crucial for enhancing the competitiveness of individuals, hospitals, and overall medical services in society. This evaluation index system is universally applicable and beneficial for countries with healthcare systems similar to those of China. This study can serve as a valuable reference for cultivating highly qualified and capable research personnel and enhancing the competitiveness of medical research.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all who participated in the nominal group technique and two rounds of the Delphi study.

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72074160) and the Natural Science Foundation Project of Beijing (9222004).

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Shuyu Liang and Ziyan Zhai contributed equally to this work and joint first authors.

Kai Meng and Yuan Gao contributed equally to this work and share corresponding author.

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Aerospace Center Hospital, No. 15 Yuquan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100049, China

Xiaozhi Sun, Jingxuan Jiao & Yuan Gao

School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, No.10 Xitoutiao, Youanmenwai Street, Fengtai District, Beijing, 100069, China

Shuyu Liang, Ziyan Zhai, Xingmiao Feng & Kai Meng

Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 119 South Fourth Ring West Road, Fengtai District, Beijing, 100070, China

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S.L. and Z.Z. contributed equally to this paper. S.L. took charge of the nominal group technique, data analysis, writing the first draft and revising the manuscript; Z.Z. was responsible for the Delphi survey, data analysis, and writing of the first draft of the manuscript; XF was responsible for the rigorous revision of Delphi methods; X.S. and J.J. were responsible for the questionnaire survey and data collection; Y.G. contributed to the questionnaire survey, organization of the nominal group interview, supervision, project administration and resources; and K.M. contributed to conceptualization, methodology, writing—review; editing, supervision, and project administration. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Liang, S., Zhai, Z., Feng, X. et al. Development of an index system for the scientific literacy of medical staff: a modified Delphi study in China. BMC Med Educ 24 , 397 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05350-0

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Review article, the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors in endometriosis.

• 1 Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Erlangen University Hospital, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Comprehensive Cancer Center Erlangen-EMN, Erlangen, Germany
• 2 First Department of Pathology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Endometriosis constitutes the most common cause of chronic pelvic pain in female patients and is associated with infertility. Although there is no known cause for the disease, it is a heritable condition that is determined by numerous genetic, epigenetic, and environmental aspects. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) represent nuclear receptor proteins that control gene expression. By using the MEDLINE and LIVIVO databases we conducted a literature review in order to look into the role of PPARs in the endometriosis pathophysiology and succeeded in revealing 36 pertinent publications between 2001 and 2022. In regards to PPAR expression in endometriosis, PPARγ seems to represent the most studied PPAR isoform in endometriosis and to influence various pathways involved in the disease onset and progression. It's interesting to note that diverse treatment agents targeting the PPAR system have been identified as innovative, effective therapeutic alternatives in the context of endometriosis treatment. In conclusion, PPARs appear to contribute an important role in both endometriosis pathophysiology and therapy.

1 Introduction

Endometrial tissue growing outside of the womb in females of reproductive age is known as endometriosis, a chronic disease ( 1 – 3 ). Depending on the localization of the different endometriotic lesions, various clinical characteristics of endometriosis exist ( 4 , 5 ). More precisely, patients with endometriosis typically report dyspareunia, chronic pelvic pain, alongside with dysmenorrhea, vaginal bleeding and/or infertility ( 6 ). Affected patients may continue to be asymptomatic. Should endometriotic lesions invade the urinary tract, dys-/hematuria can occur, while dys-/hematochezia represent additional symptoms upon intestinal involvement ( 7 ). Initial diagnosis of endometriosis is mostly based on transvaginal ultrasound findings, in addition to a thorough physical examination and patient history ( 8 , 9 ). The uterus is typically not engorged, but the existence of ovarian cysts or nodules in the rectovaginal septum and/or the bladder necessitates additional examinations ( 10 ). The best confirmatory test currently available is considered to be laparoscopy because it can detect endometriotic adhesions and implants ( 11 ). Most asymptomatic women should receive expectant management ( 12 ). When there are no complications and moderate pelvic pain, the use of analgesics in combination with continuous hormonal contraceptives is appropriate for treating symptomatic endometriosis ( 13 ). Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) agonists or oral estrogen-progestin contraceptives may need to be administered if symptoms are severe ( 14 , 15 ). Laparoscopic excision and thermal destruction of endometrial lesions are the most widely spread surgical treatments when pharmacological therapy fails to work or the disease course is complicated ( 16 ). Both retrograde menstruation and coelomic metaplasia are the two most common pathogenetic hypotheses, but the exact pathophysiology of endometriosis development and progression are still not fully explored ( 17 , 18 ). The hematogenous/lymphatic spread theory, the embryogenetic theory, and the stem cell recruitment theory are additional pertinent hypotheses ( 17 ).

Nuclear receptors which get activated by fatty acids are known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) ( 19 ). The three PPAR isoforms PPARα, PPARβ/δ, and PPARγ, each of which has distinct metabolic regulatory functions, tissue distribution, and ligand-binding characteristics ( 20 , 21 ), are all present in the body. PPARs may form heterodimers with the retinoid X receptors (RXRs) and bind to particular DNA response elements within promoter regions hence effectively inducing or repressing the expression of their target genes ( 22 ). Given the larger PPAR ligand binding cavity's size, diverse natural and synthetic ligands may attach, causing the replacement of co-repressors from co-activators and thereby enhancing the roles of PPARs ( 23 , 24 ). Only a few of the processes that PPARs control include fatty acid disposition and metabolism, various cellular biology processes, energy homeostasis, cell differentiation and immunity mechanisms ( 25 , 26 ). More specifically, PPARα co-determines fatty acid metabolism and is highly expressed in several organs such as the heart or the skeletal muscles, liver, intestinal tract, kidneys, and brown adipose tissue. Fatty acid oxidation is regulated by PPARβ/δ, which is widely expressed and also regulates blood sugar and cholesterol levels. When it comes to lipoprotein metabolism lipid biosynthesis, adipogenesis, and insulin sensitivity, PPARγ is most highly expressed in adipose cells ( 23 , 27 ).

To date, PPARs have been proclaimed to directly or indirectly co-determine numerous procedures associated with cancer and/or gynecological health conditions ( 28 – 31 ). The focus of the present literature review is to investigate the exact role of PPARs in endometriosis. The MEDLINE and LIVIVO databases were used for the conduction of the literature search. In order to be eligible for inclusion, manuscripts needed to embody original research articles and scientific abstracts written in the English language that clearly reported on the role of PPARs in this gynecologic disease. Studies on the involvement of PPARs in uterine fibroids or endometrial cancer had to be excluded. The search terms “peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor,” “PPAR,” and “endometriosis” were employed. After the exclusion of duplicates a total of 55 articles published between 2001 and 2023 were identified. In the initial selection process, a total of eight works had to be discarded after abstract review. After detailed analysis of the full texts of the remaining 47 publications, a total of 36 relevant studies published between 2001 and 2022, that met the inclusion criteria, could be selected for the literature review. Figure 1 depicts the aforementioned selection process.

Figure 1 . PRISMA flow diagram visually summarizing the screening process.

2 The role of genetics-epigenetics in endometriosis

According to the genetic-epigenetic (G-E) theory, endometriosis doesn't actually start until a number of cumulative G-E cellular changes have taken place. Predisposed women with more inherited incidents are hence at higher risk, while endometriosis could develop from any pluripotent cell other than the endometrium. This theory also explains why “endometrium-like cells” can harbor significant G-E differences. In this context, endometriosis cannot begin to develop until a number of cumulative G-E incidents have occurred ( 32 ). Errors can occur during cell division, and the risk is likely to rise in the presence of dioxin, oxidative stress, or ionizing radiation. The endometrium has a higher risk because it is the tissue in our body that grows the fastest. In addition, retrograde menstruation and microbiota, alongside the oxidative stress of the peritoneal cavity, are specifically associated with endometriosis ( 33 , 34 ). In endometriosis, the frequent cancer-driver mutations brought on by genomic instability are examples of DNA mutations ( 35 – 37 ). Epigenetic incidents in particular have not yet been recorded. Nonetheless, one challenge is that epigenetic reorganizations can be too complex or even irreversible. Therefore, despite an eventual similarity in histology, the G-E theory proposes that the endometriotic cell has experienced irreversible G and/or E changes, permanently separating endometriosis from the endometrium ( 32 ). The possibility that these endometriotic cells could cause reversible metaplasia in the surrounding cells, which would cause them to histologically resemble endometrium, is currently more speculative. This is strongly implied, though not formally proven, when it is remembered that recurrences rise even after resections with safety margins. According to the G-E theory, endometriosis can develop from any type of poorly differentiated cell such as stem and bone marrow cells. Nonetheless, there is a higher chance of development from endometrium or embryological rests that have already progressed in that way ( 32 ). Each endometriosis lesion has a unique number and type of G-E incidents because they are clonal and have different molecular biology, which explains the various levels of progesterone resistance or aromatase activity ( 38 , 39 ). This variation also provides an explanation why some lesions are not painful or do not cause distant discomfort ( 40 ) and why different patients may respond differently to hormonal therapy ( 41 , 42 ). The specific arrangement of G-E incidents may also account for the emergence of superficial, cystic, or deep endometriosis in lesions. It is also crucial to note that the numerous endometriosis-related changes in the endometrium, immunology, infertility, and pregnancy are not always caused by endometriosis but can instead be attributed to an inherited propensity ( 32 ). Deep endometriosis in women not taking estrogens can occasionally start and progress years after menopause, which is also explained by the G-E pathogenesis ( 32 ).

3 The role of PPARs in the pathogenesis of endometriosis

Chen et al. performed a Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis and stated that the PPAR signaling pathway is associated with the proliferation, metastasis, and autophagy of endometrial cells ( 43 ). Moreover, Hornung et al. evaluated the role of PPARs in macrophage attraction into the peritoneal cavity of women with endometriotic lesions. Using immunocytochemistry, the researchers localized PPARα and PPARγ within the nuclei of peritoneal macrophages and pro-monocytic, human histiocytic lymphoma U937 cells. Migration of U937 cells was increased by the PPARα agonist WY14643 and restrained by rosiglitazone. Peritoneal fluid from patients with endometriosis activated U937 cells which had been transiently transfected with a PPARα reporter, whereas it did not successfully activate PPARγ constructs. Notably, U937 cells, which had been transiently transfected with a PPAR reporter, showed endometriosis stage-dependent up-regulation upon peritoneal fluid treatment from women with endometriosis. On the contrary, PPAR response element transactivation was down-regulated after treatment with peritoneal fluid from healthy controls ( 44 ).

3.1 The role of PPARα in the pathogenesis of endometriosis

Two studies have, so far, examined the role of PPARα in endometriosis.

Peng et al. ( 45 ) demonstrated that high local estrogen level derived from ectopic endometrial stromal cells promote expression of prion, which serves as a critical mediator in augmenting cholesterol accumulation and estrogen production through negative regulation of the PPARα pathway, thus promoting endometriosis progression. Furthermore, Pergaliotis et al. examined mice with surgically-induced endometriosis and reported that PPARα-deficient mice cannot properly induce angiogenesis to sustain as many endometriotic crypts in the implantation site, with the amount of inflammation in the implantation site hence being significantly higher compared to control animal. However, in the control group, fibroblastic activity was found to be significantly up-regulated ( 46 ).

3.2 The therapeutic effects of PPARα-targeting agents in endometriosis

Chen et al. generated a first model of endometriosis in rats and a second model of endometriosis using the human ectopic endometrial stromal cells (HEcESCs) derived from the lesion tissues of endometriosis patients. Following the administration of resveratrol in the rat model, significant efficacy was observed in the context of lesion size attenuation and aberrant lipid profile rectification. Lipidomic analysis revealed, on the one hand, notable sphingolipid increases and, on the other hand, decreases of both glycerolipids and most phospholipids. Upon resveratrol admission, both proliferation capacity and invasiveness parameters diminished, whereas the early apoptosis proportion augmented for HEcESCs. The activation of PPARα was also described as a potential factor of recovery from endometriosis in both models ( 47 ). Massimi et al. ( 48 ) treated 12Z endometriotic epithelial cells with aspirin and other non-aspirin Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) which induced PPARα expression.

3.3 The role of PPARγ in the pathogenesis of endometriosis

The most studied PPAR in endometriosis is undoubtedly PPARγ.

Caserta et al. ( 49 ) suggested that patients with endometriosis show higher PPARγ levels than women with other causes of infertility. Additionally, Liu et al. found that both ovarian endometriomas and deep infiltrating endometriosis had significantly reduced immunoreactivity against PPARγ. In particular, PPARγ staining levels were significantly lower in the deep infiltrating endometriosis patient group. Of note, the PPARγ staining levels was negatively associated with the fibrotic extent ( 50 ). Besides, Zolbin et al. performed a gene expression analysis and showed that endometriosis may alter the expression of PPARγ. More precisely, the let-7b mimic significantly reduced the messenger RiboNucleic Acid (mRNA) levels of PPARγ, whereas microRNA-342-3p mimic increased its expression levels ( 51 ). Harzif et al. presented the case of a 34-year-old patient with extrapelvic endometriosis in an abdominal wall scar. A sample of the abdominal endometriosis and uterine endometrium underwent Reverse Transcriptase quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) examination of PPARγ mRNA expression. PCR examination results revealed that PPARγ activity was higher in the abdominal wall endometriosis compared to the eutopic endometrium ( 52 ).

Dogan et al. investigated the correlation of the PPAR-γ2 Proline to Alanine at 12th amino acid (Pro12Ala) polymorphism with endometriosis in a case–control study incorporating 55 control women without endometriosis as opposed to 51 women with endometriosis stages I–IV. The study group observed a higher frequency of the Pro-12-Ala polymorphism in women with endometriosis compared with the control cases. Interestingly, the frequency was even greater in patients with one or more recurrences of endometriosis, thus implying that the 12-Pro allele might exert protective effects in terms of implantation and growth of ectopic endometrial fragments, whereas the 12-Ala allele could potentially facilitate endometrioid development, progression, and recurrence ( 53 ). Moreover, Kiyomizu et al. proved that there is no association between distribution of genotype or allele frequencies for the PPAR-γ Pro12Ala polymorphism and the presence of adenomyosis and/or endometriosis in the Japanese population. Nonetheless, the PPAR-γ 161CC genotype and 161C allele frequencies seem to show significant overexpression in women with adenomyosis and/or endometriosis ( 54 ). In a similar context, Hwang et al. performed a case–control study in a collective of 427 controls and 446 patients in the Korean population. The distribution of the PPAR-γ2 Pro12Ala polymorphism differed between the advanced-stage endometriosis group and the control group, while the frequency for the Ala-12 allele variant was significantly higher in the control group than in patients with advanced endometriosis stages ( 55 ). Last but not least, Beeram et al. reported that genetic variants of the PPARγ coactivator 1α (PGC-1α) do not seem to correlate with the risk of endometriosis in the Indian population, with GTT of PGC-1α gene constituting the most common haplotype in Indian women ( 56 ).

Table 1 summarizes the role of PPARγ in the pathogenesis of endometriosis.

Table 1 . The role of PPARγ in the pathogenesis of endometriosis.

3.4 The PPARγ-associated therapeutic effects of antihypertensive, antidiabetic and cholesterol-regulating agents in endometriosis

Glitazones represent synthetic derivatives of thiazolidinedione, and are designated as potent oral anti-diabetic agents ( 57 ). A Turkish study group transplanted endometrial tissue fragments onto the inner surface of the abdominal wall in 28 rats and, consecutively, orally administered rosiglitazone to this group. Surprisingly enough, the PPARγ agonist succeeded in significantly reducing the height, width, length, and spherical volumes, of endometriosis in the studied rat model ( 58 , 59 ). Furthermore, Zhang et al. ( 60 ) applied rosiglitazone to surgically-induced endometriosis rats which enhanced the expression of PPARγ and impacted the development and progression of endometriosis by inhibition of angiogenesis as well as apoptosis induction. In 2002, Pritts et al. ( 61 ) described in their first relevant publication that rosiglitazone and 15 deoxy-Δ 12,14 prostaglandin J 2 decreases endometrial stromal cell transcription and translation of Regulated upon Activation Normal T-cell Expressed and Secreted (RANTES) in vitro . One year later, the same study group concluded that the addition of PPARγ ligands to endometriotic stromal cells inhibits RANTES promoter activity through a specific PPARγ response element ( 62 ). Moreover, Olivares et al. applied celecoxib in combination with rosiglitazone to a surgically induced endometriosis mouse model and outlined a statistically significant reduction in the mean number of lesions, the implant volume, or the vascularization level. Notably, the down-regulation of cell proliferation within the implants was statistically significant, while apoptosis showed a statistically significant boost ( 63 ). In 2010, Sharma et al. treated endometrial-endometriotic stromal cells isolated from ectopic endometrium with atorvastatin and observed a distinct expression increase of PPARγ ( 64 ). A year later, the same study group examined the therapeutic effect of rosiglitazone and 15d-PGJ2 on endometrial-endometriotic stromal cells and again reached the conclusion that both agents might support the expression of PPARγ ( 65 ).

Ohama et al. treated endometriotic stromal cells with pioglitazone and reported a significant reduction of the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-a-induced Interleukin-8 production, alongside a suppression of the growth of endometriotic stromal cells, as well as a reduction of the concentration of p65 ( 66 ). In addition, Kim et al. ( 67 ) treated infertile patients with stage III or IV endometriosis undergoing in vitro fertilization, alongside controlled ovarian stimulation with GnRH agonist, with pioglitazone and noticed both a significantly higher embryo implantation rate and significantly lower serum RANTES levels after pioglitazone treatment. In 2009, McKinnon et al. published their first original research article on the association of PPARγ and endometriosis. In peritoneal lesions, the pain reported by endometriosis patients increased as PPARγ expression augmented. Nonetheless, the extent of PPARγ expression did not correlate with the stage assigned to the patient ( 68 ). Three years later, the same study group treated endometrial stromal cells with ciglitazone and pioglitazone which attenuated a dose-dependent interleukin-6 and interleukin-8 release ( 69 ).

Wu et al. cultured immortalized endometrial and endometriotic cell lines with both the histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin A and ciglitazone and noted that trichostatin A up-regulates PPARγ expression in a dose-dependent way, while ciglitazone inhibits proliferation of endometriotic cells ( 70 ). Besides, Kavoussi et al. treated the endometrial epithelial cell line EM42 and the mesothelial cell line LP9 with the PPARγ agonist ciglitazone. Application of 40 mM ciglitazone to the EM42 cells decreased EM42 attachment to LP9 cells by 27%, while treatment of both EM42 and LP9 cells with 40 mM ciglitazone decreased EM42 attachment to LP9 by 37%. Administration of 40 mM ciglitazone to EM42 cells also decreased attachment to hyaluronic acid by 66%. Nevertheless, invasion of EM42 cells through the LP9 monolayer was not decreased by ciglitazone ( 71 ). In 2004, Lebovic et al. published their first original research article on the effects of ciglitazone in a rat model of endometriosis and reported that treatment with this thiazolidinedione might significantly decrease both the mean explant wet weight and the size of ectopic uterine tissues. Notably, the ciglitazone-treated rats experienced marked epithelial regression as well ( 72 ). Three years later, the same study group tested the effects of rosiglitazone in a baboon model of established endometriosis. The surface area of endometriotic lesions was statistically significantly higher in rosiglitazone non-treated baboons, with the rosiglitazone-treated baboons treated having a greater negative relative change in terms of peritoneal endometriotic lesion surface area ( 73 ). In 2010, the researchers conducted a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled study in a baboon model to determine if, this time, pioglitazone could impede endometriosis development. Not only the surface area but also the volume of endometriotic lesions were significantly higher in the non-pioglitazone-treated baboons, with the overall number of endometriotic lesions being significantly greater ( 74 ). Three years later, Lebovic et al. revealed that ciglitazone succeeds in inhibiting the growth of the endometriotic epithelial cells 12Z up to 35% and of the endometriotic stromal cells 22B up to 70% via transformed cell cycle control and intrinsic apoptosis, diminishing the PGE2 receptor (EP) 2 and EP4 mRNA expression in 12Z and 22B cells, and down-regulating the expression and function of P450 aromatase mRNA and protein and estrone production in 12Z and 22B cells via EP2 and EP4 in a stromal-epithelial cell-specific way ( 75 ).

Wang et al. established a rat model of endometriosis by trans-implanting endometrial fragments to the peritoneal wall and then administered resveratrol to the rats. Intense staining of PPARγ expression was induced by high dose resveratrol treatment in glandular epithelial cells in the lesion tissues of model rats, hence inducing PPARγ activation in ectopic focus of endometriosis-induced rats ( 76 ).

In 2014, Nenicu et al. ( 77 ) proved that the angiotensin II type 1 receptor blocker telmisartan up-regulates PPARγ in peritoneal endometriosis-like lesions, hence resulting in a lower immune cell content, a reduced density of CD31-positive microvessels and a smaller number of Ki67-positive proliferating cells. Three years later, the researchers highlighted that co-treatment of peritoneal endometriotic lesions with telmisartan and the Cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitor parecoxib synergistically promotes the stromal and glandular expression of PPARγ ( 78 ).

Yang et al. established endometriosis rats with estradiol valerate and autologous transplantation and administered different doses of the Chinese traditional medicine QIU through oral gavage for 4 weeks, which promoted autophagy and inhibited angiogenesis by regulating the PPARγ/Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) signaling pathway ( 79 ).

Figure 2 depicts all identified PPARγ-modulating treatment agents that provenly play a significant role in the therapy of endometriosis.

Figure 2 . PPARγ-modulating treatment agents for the therapy of endometriosis. Selected well-established drug classes (analgesics; antidiabetics; etc.) seem to show promising therapeutic effects by up- or downregulating the expression of PPARγ in endometriotic cells.

4 Discussion

It has been shown that all PPAR isoforms are expressed in the uteri of various mammal species ( 80 ). However, the physiological status of each person or species may be the cause of the variation in their expression patterns ( 80 ). PPARs appear to be involved in the regulation of numerous uterine secretory functions essential for the implantation of the embryo during pregnancy or the lysis of the corpus luteum during the estrous cycle ( 81 – 83 ) given their differential expression during different reproductive conditions. Their interactions with prostaglandins, steroids, and cytokines may act as a conduit for their effects at the endometrial level ( 80 ). Additionally, alterations in the PPAR expression profile appear to have an effect on signal transduction during inflammatory processes that occur in the endometrium in cases of cystic endometrial hyperplasia and pyometra, as well as to cause hormonal disturbances ( 84 ). It is interesting to note that PPAR agonists have been shown to be correlated with estradiol-induced hyperplasia and proliferation in mouse uterus ( 85 ). So far, only few drugs such as hormonal therapy with progesterone or GnRH-modulators have received FDA approval for the treatment of endometriosis ( 86 ). Up to the present time, no review article has, to our knowledge, been published focusing on the role of PPARs in endometriosis. As such, the current article constitutes an up-to-date review comprehensive of the literature about the effects of the PPAR isoforms PPARα and PPARγ in endometriosis establishment and progression, alongside their potential as eventual anti-endometriotic treatment targets ( Figure 3 ).

Figure 3 . The role of PPARS in endometriosis. PPARα and PPARγ seem to influence various pathways involved in the disease onset and progression, including inflammation, vascularization, immunoreactivity, as well as (epi-) genetics.

Only two study groups have, so far, investigated the role of PPARα in endometriosis. Based on the study results, negative regulation of the PPARα pathway seems to promote endometriosis progression and to hinder adequate vascularization which directly correlates with the level of inflammation at the endometriotic implantation site. In the context of PPARα therapeutic targeting, the administration of resveratrol in endometriosis seemingly leads to the activation of PPARα which might potentially contribute to the recovery from this disease. Aspirin and other NSAIDs also succeed in inducing the PPARα expression.

PPARγ undoubtedly represents the most studied PPARγ isoform in endometriosis. Patients with endometriosis tend to have altered levels of PPARγ, with both ovarian endometriomas and deep infiltrating endometriosis showing significantly reduced immunoreactivity against PPARγ, but PPARγ activity being higher in abdominal wall endometriosis than in the eutopic endometrium. Interestingly enough, the exact location and extent of the endometriosis seems to have an influence on the PPARγ expression pattern. Additionally, the PPAR-γ2 Pro12Ala polymorphisms seem to differentially correlate with the risk of endometriosis in different ethnic populations. For instance, no association between distribution of genotype or allele frequencies for the PPAR-γ Pro12Ala polymorphism and the presence of adenomyosis and/or endometriosis could be noticed in the Japanese population. In the Korean population, on the other hand, the distribution of the PPAR-γ2 Pro12Ala polymorphism differs between advanced-stage endometriosis patients and healthy women. Significantly, genetic variants of the PGC-1α do not seem to correlate with the endometriosis risk in Indian female patients.

In the context of PPARγ therapeutic targeting, glitazones such as rosiglitazone, pioglitazone, and ciglitazone, seem to embody potent treatment agents which successfully suppress inflammation in endometriosis, decrease both the mean explant wet weight and the size of ectopic uterine tissues and even endorse fertility. Resveratrol treatment induces PPARγ activation in ectopic focus of endometriosis, while telmisartan up-regulates PPARγ in peritoneal endometriosis-like lesions with consecutive anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative effects. Impressively, the Chinese traditional medicine QIU seems to effectively induce autophagy and block angiogenesis via the PPARγ/NF-κB signaling pathway.

Unfortunately, no study has been found that has, up to this point, included a sizable number of tissue samples, which would have provided more reliable and objective results. Furthermore, no PPAR agonist was given to patients with endometriosis as part of randomized controlled trials in order to assess the clinical applicability/efficacy of these drugs and identify potential unknown toxic effects. Future research should therefore address the aforementioned drawbacks and, ideally, examine the function of PPARs in early and advanced stage endometriosis separately. Most importantly, the efficacy of these novel agents on specific symptoms of endometriosis, namely infertility or chronic pelvic pain, should be thoroughly tested, given that these are two very different outcomes and therapeutic targets for various drugs.

The nonsystematic methodology used in the study selection is one of the review's limitations. In spite of the fact that systematic literature reviews adhere to strict rules and standards and represent the most accurate method for locating pertinent research articles, this methodology necessitates a precise research question by excluding broader topics like the function of PPARs in endometriosis. The publication bias (as data from statistically insignificant studies are less likely to be published), and the associated evidence selection bias, are also drawbacks of the present study.

5 Conclusions

In conclusion, the present literature review emphasizes the critical role of PPARs in the onset and progression of endometriosis and emphasizes the therapeutic potential of PPAR agonists against endometriotic cells. In order to come to unbiased and repeatable results and fully delineate the role of PPARs in endometriosis pathogenesis and therapy, additional systematic research is still needed in this field including knockout or knockdown study models and implementation of up- or down-regulators.

Author contributions

IP: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—original draft. ST: Writing—review & editing. MB: Writing—review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: endometriosis, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, epigenetics, inflammation, vascularization

Citation: Psilopatis I, Theocharis S and Beckmann MW (2024) The role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors in endometriosis. Front. Med. 11:1329406. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1329406

Received: 28 October 2023; Accepted: 01 April 2024; Published: 16 April 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Psilopatis, Theocharis and Beckmann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Matthias W. Beckmann, matthias.beckmann@uk-erlangen.de

Surrendering the Self

The posthuman world in vandermeer's annihilation.

In his novel Annihilation , author Jeff Vandermeer provides a science-fiction narrative on nature as an unstoppable and uncontrollable environment where plants, animals, humans, and the land exist as a collective and connected entity of interactions. The novel utilizes Lovecraftian horror elements of an uncontrollable nature, human contamination, and an unknowable future controlled by nonhuman forces to portray both a multispecies environment and the posthuman future. Read through a multispecies lens and framed by Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene , this essay is an analysis of how Annihilation ’s setting—Area X—necessitates the removal of human-centered processes and the human concept of individualism for favor of a flourishing multispecies environment. Its analysis exemplifies the genre of science fiction as a method to expand the boundaries of our perceived human-centered world. The narrative and rhetorical structures utilized by Vandermeer in his representation of real-world environments and natural processes as uncanny horrors and an off-center reality accurately represent the unknown future beyond the human species.

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