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. 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 -
Update. 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/2506.15237New study: "More women-led papers receive at least one media mention in women-underrepresented fields, but they are cited less frequently across all fields. Women authors are underrepresented in national outlets and are more often reported by liberal media. Sentiment analysis shows that men-led papers are more often associated with positive sentiment in news text, while women-led papers elicit more negative sentiment."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10755470251360187 -
New study: "More women-led papers receive at least one media mention in women-underrepresented fields, but they are cited less frequently across all fields. Women authors are underrepresented in national outlets and are more often reported by liberal media. Sentiment analysis shows that men-led papers are more often associated with positive sentiment in news text, while women-led papers elicit more negative sentiment."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10755470251360187Update. "Women are significantly underrepresented among highly cited scholars globally (0.255 women per man) and receive fewer citations and have lower h-indexes than men in most regions and disciplines. However, after controlling for productivity and career length, female scholars are cited more than men in the pooled sample, Asia, Europe, and in two fields (natural sciences and exact sciences/physics). Despite this, women’s h-index remains significantly lower than men’s in all regions except Africa and South America, and in all fields except social sciences."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0334690 -
Update. "Women are significantly underrepresented among highly cited scholars globally (0.255 women per man) and receive fewer citations and have lower h-indexes than men in most regions and disciplines. However, after controlling for productivity and career length, female scholars are cited more than men in the pooled sample, Asia, Europe, and in two fields (natural sciences and exact sciences/physics). Despite this, women’s h-index remains significantly lower than men’s in all regions except Africa and South America, and in all fields except social sciences."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0334690Update. "Women are markedly underrepresented among authors of retracted publications, particularly in cases involving multiple retractions."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0335059The article is #OpenAccess. But on the day of publication, this #paywalled comment by Jenna Ahart appeared in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03796-w -
Update. "Women are markedly underrepresented among authors of retracted publications, particularly in cases involving multiple retractions."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0335059The article is #OpenAccess. But on the day of publication, this #paywalled comment by Jenna Ahart appeared in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03796-wUpdate. "Authors with very feminine and masculine first names respectively get a lower and higher share of citations for every article published, irrespective of their contribution role."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08219 -
Update. "Authors with very feminine and masculine first names respectively get a lower and higher share of citations for every article published, irrespective of their contribution role."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08219Update. "In male-dominated fields, women have significantly broader research interests than men, while this gap diminishes and reverses in more gender-balanced fields. Although broader publication trajectories help women increase publication output, this strategy carries steeper citation penalties for women than for men. The results suggest that academic fields act as sites of inequality production, channeling women toward research patterns that boost immediate productivity while undermining long-term scholarly influence."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23780231251396273 -
Update. "In male-dominated fields, women have significantly broader research interests than men, while this gap diminishes and reverses in more gender-balanced fields. Although broader publication trajectories help women increase publication output, this strategy carries steeper citation penalties for women than for men. The results suggest that academic fields act as sites of inequality production, channeling women toward research patterns that boost immediate productivity while undermining long-term scholarly influence."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23780231251396273Update. In the field of oil pollution research, "female authors accounted for about 32% of the total authors…were significantly underrepresented in most of the African countries [and in] the UK and Norway…Gender variation in oil pollution publications was discovered to be influenced by religion in Africa; Islam had the mean highest rank when compared with Christianity."
https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v29i11.22 -
Update. In the field of oil pollution research, "female authors accounted for about 32% of the total authors…were significantly underrepresented in most of the African countries [and in] the UK and Norway…Gender variation in oil pollution publications was discovered to be influenced by religion in Africa; Islam had the mean highest rank when compared with Christianity."
https://doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v29i11.22Update. "We conduct a comprehensive comparison between peer-review scores and citation-based metrics across various scientific fields [in Italy]…While both evaluation methods exhibit sex bias, peer review systematically penalizes women more severely than citation-based metrics."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157725001245 -
Update. "We conduct a comprehensive comparison between peer-review scores and citation-based metrics across various scientific fields [in Italy]…While both evaluation methods exhibit sex bias, peer review systematically penalizes women more severely than citation-based metrics."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157725001245Update. A letter to the editor about a study I posted to this thread 11/23/25: "The suggestion that [the lower #retraction rate for women] is because male researchers undergo more scrutiny, propose bolder ideas and lead larger and more dynamic teams than do female researchers implies that male scientists are better at science. As female scientists, our lived experience points to alternative explanations: elevated rigour and scientific integrity by female scientists or more critical peer review of female-led manuscripts."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00120-y
(#paywalled) -
Update. A letter to the editor about a study I posted to this thread 11/23/25: "The suggestion that [the lower #retraction rate for women] is because male researchers undergo more scrutiny, propose bolder ideas and lead larger and more dynamic teams than do female researchers implies that male scientists are better at science. As female scientists, our lived experience points to alternative explanations: elevated rigour and scientific integrity by female scientists or more critical peer review of female-led manuscripts."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00120-y
(#paywalled)Update. "By analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003574 -
Update. "By analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003574@petersuber
Hmm, I don't know if I would write this sentence"By analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles, and that differences remain significant after controlling for several factors."
when only 8 millions of the records in PubMed have submitted and accepted dates as part of their metadata
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Update. "By analyzing all articles indexed in the PubMed database (>36.5 million articles published in >36,000 biomedical and life sciences journals), we show that the median amount of time spent under review is 7.4%–14.6% longer for female-authored articles than for male-authored articles."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003574Update. "Citation counts [for female authors] are on average 5.5% lower than those of comparable male authors…Papers produced by all-female teams receive 56.7% fewer citations than those by all-male teams, while mixed-gender teams achieve a 30.9% citation advantage."
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-4155/paper10.pdf
