Early in the pandemic (April 2020) I started what became a long #Twitter thread on #gender #bias in academic #publishing.
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Update. The Journal of Cardiac Failure switched from single-blind to double-blind peer review to increase the number of its women authors. Three years later it reports the results.
https://onlinejcf.com/article/S1071-9164(24)00378-6/abstract
(#paywalled)"The proportion of women first authors increased from 24% in Era 1 to 34% in Era 2 to 39% in Era 3 while the percentage of women authors serving in a senior authorship role remained fairly stable over time around 21-22%."
Update. New study: "Female-led [scientific] teams generate more novel and disruptive ideas. However, they tend to produce articles with fewer scientific impact [sic] compared to their male-led counterparts…Further analysis indicates that this gender bias intensifies in later career stages and with larger team sizes."
https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/doi/10.1162/qss_a_00335/124962/Female-led-teams-produce-more-innovative-ideas-yet -
Update. New study: "Female-led [scientific] teams generate more novel and disruptive ideas. However, they tend to produce articles with fewer scientific impact [sic] compared to their male-led counterparts…Further analysis indicates that this gender bias intensifies in later career stages and with larger team sizes."
https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/doi/10.1162/qss_a_00335/124962/Female-led-teams-produce-more-innovative-ideas-yetUpdate. At the Technische Universität Ilmenau, "#gender has a negative influence on the publication frequency but not on the citation rate."
https://tarupublications.com/doi/10.47974/CJSIM-2024-0019 -
Update. At the Technische Universität Ilmenau, "#gender has a negative influence on the publication frequency but not on the citation rate."
https://tarupublications.com/doi/10.47974/CJSIM-2024-0019Update. In #EasternEurope "the highest percentage of female authored articles was in journals from #Slovenia (mean = 47.28%) and a lowest in journals from #Azerbaijan (mean = 29.30%)."
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10737547
(#paywalled) -
Update. In #EasternEurope "the highest percentage of female authored articles was in journals from #Slovenia (mean = 47.28%) and a lowest in journals from #Azerbaijan (mean = 29.30%)."
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10737547
(#paywalled)Update. "[The] metric called field-weighted citation impact (#FWCI)…compares citations received by individuals or groups with the average from similar papers in the field. In 2022, male materials scientists based in #India had a 10% higher FWCI than women working in the country. The #gender gap is not so pronounced within other fields."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04004-x -
Update. "[The] metric called field-weighted citation impact (#FWCI)…compares citations received by individuals or groups with the average from similar papers in the field. In 2022, male materials scientists based in #India had a 10% higher FWCI than women working in the country. The #gender gap is not so pronounced within other fields."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04004-xUpdate. #AI / #LLMs "tend to recommend literature with greater citation counts, later publication date, and larger author teams. Yet, in scholar recommendation tasks, there is no evidence that LLMs disproportionately recommend male, white, or developed-country authors, contrasting with patterns of known human biases."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00367 -
Update. #AI / #LLMs "tend to recommend literature with greater citation counts, later publication date, and larger author teams. Yet, in scholar recommendation tasks, there is no evidence that LLMs disproportionately recommend male, white, or developed-country authors, contrasting with patterns of known human biases."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00367Update. The _Emergency Medicine Journal_ commits to reporting #clinicaltrial data broken down by #sex and #gender.
https://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2025/01/06/emermed-2024-214743"Despite…widely reported gender disparities [in medical risks and conditions], we still rarely see the results of clinical trials disaggregated by sex…We must begin now with better data, better approaches to analysis and better reporting…We know that authors don’t always read the not-so-fine print in our guidance, so it will be on us as editors to remind authors to report sex-disaggregated results when possible. We welcome readers to hold us to our word, assuring that this happens."
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Update. The _Emergency Medicine Journal_ commits to reporting #clinicaltrial data broken down by #sex and #gender.
https://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2025/01/06/emermed-2024-214743"Despite…widely reported gender disparities [in medical risks and conditions], we still rarely see the results of clinical trials disaggregated by sex…We must begin now with better data, better approaches to analysis and better reporting…We know that authors don’t always read the not-so-fine print in our guidance, so it will be on us as editors to remind authors to report sex-disaggregated results when possible. We welcome readers to hold us to our word, assuring that this happens."
Update. "The within-discipline differences [of h-index] by #gender are smallest in the humanities and STEM fields and largest in the medical field."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0316913 -
Update. "The within-discipline differences [of h-index] by #gender are smallest in the humanities and STEM fields and largest in the medical field."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0316913Update. New study: "Among nearly 35,000 biological scientists who authored their first paper in 2000, women were more likely than men to have stopped publishing after 5, 10 or 20 years. The size of this #gender gap varies between disciplines."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00021-6
(#paywalled) -
Update. New study: "Among nearly 35,000 biological scientists who authored their first paper in 2000, women were more likely than men to have stopped publishing after 5, 10 or 20 years. The size of this #gender gap varies between disciplines."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00021-6
(#paywalled)Update. There are many studies of #gender bias in academic publishing. Having tracked them for years in this Mastodon thread (and an earlier Twitter thread), I agree with this new study that "methodological inconsistencies, particularly in author name disambiguation and gender identification, limit the reliability and comparability of these studies." The authors propose a standardized "framework for documenting and reporting key methodological choices in scholarly data analysis, including author name disambiguation and gender identification procedures." This "will facilitate more accurate comparisons and aggregations of research findings."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.18129 -
Update. There are many studies of #gender bias in academic publishing. Having tracked them for years in this Mastodon thread (and an earlier Twitter thread), I agree with this new study that "methodological inconsistencies, particularly in author name disambiguation and gender identification, limit the reliability and comparability of these studies." The authors propose a standardized "framework for documenting and reporting key methodological choices in scholarly data analysis, including author name disambiguation and gender identification procedures." This "will facilitate more accurate comparisons and aggregations of research findings."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.18129Update. In the field of public administration, "when women are first authors, the research team is more likely to contain other women and while women are increasingly represented in coauthorship structures, men-only groups of coauthors continue to persist."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13923 -
Update. In the field of public administration, "when women are first authors, the research team is more likely to contain other women and while women are increasingly represented in coauthorship structures, men-only groups of coauthors continue to persist."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13923Update. "Mixed-gender teams are more likely to face #retractions than all-male or all-female teams, while individual authors are less prone to retractions…Male-led publications are often retracted for serious ethical violations, such as data falsification and plagiarism, while female-led publications primarily face procedural errors and updates in rapidly evolving fields. Promoting women to positions of responsibility in mix-collaborations may not only advances gender equity but also the accuracy of the scientific record."
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00353 -
Update. "Mixed-gender teams are more likely to face #retractions than all-male or all-female teams, while individual authors are less prone to retractions…Male-led publications are often retracted for serious ethical violations, such as data falsification and plagiarism, while female-led publications primarily face procedural errors and updates in rapidly evolving fields. Promoting women to positions of responsibility in mix-collaborations may not only advances gender equity but also the accuracy of the scientific record."
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00353Update. New study: In the social sciences, "male editors-in-chief outnumber females across most fields (66.67%), countries (76.60%), and affiliations (63.16%)."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0317931 -
Update. New study: In the social sciences, "male editors-in-chief outnumber females across most fields (66.67%), countries (76.60%), and affiliations (63.16%)."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0317931Update. From a _Nature_ editorial.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00891-w"It’s no secret that women’s participation in research is not reflected in the literature on a par with men’s, and that other #gender identities are all but invisible. The gap is particularly wide in some disciplines, notably the physical sciences…as well as at more-senior levels. But are some fields making more progress than others? If so, what can be learnt from them…? These are some of the questions that reporters and data analysts from Nature Index set out to investigate in their project, Nature Index Author Gender Ratio, launched in 2024. This week, they report some early results."
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Update. From a _Nature_ editorial.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00891-w"It’s no secret that women’s participation in research is not reflected in the literature on a par with men’s, and that other #gender identities are all but invisible. The gap is particularly wide in some disciplines, notably the physical sciences…as well as at more-senior levels. But are some fields making more progress than others? If so, what can be learnt from them…? These are some of the questions that reporters and data analysts from Nature Index set out to investigate in their project, Nature Index Author Gender Ratio, launched in 2024. This week, they report some early results."
Update. "Data from the Nature Index reveal the slow erosion of the #gender gap in global research publishing over the past decade. But with just 27% of high-quality papers in the natural sciences having female co-authors in 2024, there is a lot of room for improvement. In the health sciences — where women have a stronger presence — that figure sits at 41%."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00553-x -
Update. "Data from the Nature Index reveal the slow erosion of the #gender gap in global research publishing over the past decade. But with just 27% of high-quality papers in the natural sciences having female co-authors in 2024, there is a lot of room for improvement. In the health sciences — where women have a stronger presence — that figure sits at 41%."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00553-xUpdate. In the fields of #NLP and #LIS, "papers with different #gender compositions achieve varying numbers of citations, with mixed-gender collaborations gradually obtaining higher average citation counts compared to same-gender collaborations."
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2025.101662 -
Update. In the fields of #NLP and #LIS, "papers with different #gender compositions achieve varying numbers of citations, with mixed-gender collaborations gradually obtaining higher average citation counts compared to same-gender collaborations."
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2025.101662Update. New study: In #Africa, the percentage of journal articles written by women has "grown significantly, with Engineering and Technology rising from 16% to 21%, Physical Sciences from 19% to 23%, and Life Sciences and Biomedicine from 29% to 35%. In contrast, gains in social sciences were more modest, with Arts and Humanities remaining stable at 28% and Social Sciences increasing slightly from 26% to 28%."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.2007 -
Update. New study: In #Africa, the percentage of journal articles written by women has "grown significantly, with Engineering and Technology rising from 16% to 21%, Physical Sciences from 19% to 23%, and Life Sciences and Biomedicine from 29% to 35%. In contrast, gains in social sciences were more modest, with Arts and Humanities remaining stable at 28% and Social Sciences increasing slightly from 26% to 28%."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.2007Update. For research in #Brazil "indexing biases disproportionately affect researchers focusing on locally relevant topics through articles that are written in Portuguese. Given women's overrepresentation in this group, our findings illustrate how indexing biases contribute to gender inequalities in science."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391183750_Occluded_Topics_The_hidden_half_of_Brazilian_research -
Update. For research in #Brazil "indexing biases disproportionately affect researchers focusing on locally relevant topics through articles that are written in Portuguese. Given women's overrepresentation in this group, our findings illustrate how indexing biases contribute to gender inequalities in science."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391183750_Occluded_Topics_The_hidden_half_of_Brazilian_researchUpdate. New study: "Male first authors have higher #retraction rates, particularly for scientific misconduct such as plagiarism, authorship disputes, ethical issues, duplication, and fabrication/falsification. No significant gender differences were found in retractions attributed to mistakes."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S175115772500046X -
Update. New study: "Male first authors have higher #retraction rates, particularly for scientific misconduct such as plagiarism, authorship disputes, ethical issues, duplication, and fabrication/falsification. No significant gender differences were found in retractions attributed to mistakes."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S175115772500046XUpdate. "Since 2017, the #UK has mandated organisations employing more than 250 people to publicly report their annual #gender #PayGap…Every science publisher pays men more than women. In 2024, the lowest median pay gap favouring men was 9.5% (#SpringerNature), followed by #Sage (13.3%), #Wiley (17.7%), and #Informa (formerly Taylor & Francis) (22.7%). #Elsevier remains an outlier in the magnitude of its gender pay gap and in the lack of progress. Eight years ago Elsevier stood out among publishers, with a median pay gap in 2017 of 40.4% in favour of men over women in its UK business…Elsevier’s median pay gap for 2024 is 32.8%, maintaining its position as worst performer among peers over all eight years of mandatory reporting."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004673 -
Update. "Since 2017, the #UK has mandated organisations employing more than 250 people to publicly report their annual #gender #PayGap…Every science publisher pays men more than women. In 2024, the lowest median pay gap favouring men was 9.5% (#SpringerNature), followed by #Sage (13.3%), #Wiley (17.7%), and #Informa (formerly Taylor & Francis) (22.7%). #Elsevier remains an outlier in the magnitude of its gender pay gap and in the lack of progress. Eight years ago Elsevier stood out among publishers, with a median pay gap in 2017 of 40.4% in favour of men over women in its UK business…Elsevier’s median pay gap for 2024 is 32.8%, maintaining its position as worst performer among peers over all eight years of mandatory reporting."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004673Update. New study: "Women are more frequently acknowledged than credited as co-authors…To account for status and disciplinary effects, we examined collaboration pairs composed of highly cited (high-status) and less cited (low-status) scientists. In such collaborations, the highly cited scientist is more likely to be listed as a co-author, regardless of gender. Notably, highly cited women in these pairs are even more likely to be listed as co-authors than their male counterparts."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15237
