@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Since the pandemic shutdown began, journal submissions of co-authored papers, with women among the co-authors, are slightly up, and solo-authored papers by women are significantly down. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/21/early-journal-submission-data-suggest-covid-19-tanking-womens-research-productivity

Early journal submission data suggest COVID-19 is tanking women's research productivity Early journal submission data suggest COVID-19 is tanking women's research productivity. insidehighered.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/12/womens-research-plummets-during-lockdown-but-articles-from-men-increase

Women's research plummets during lockdown - but articles from men increase Many female academics say juggling their career with coronavirus childcare is overwhelming theguardian.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/decline-women-scientist-research-publishing-production-coronavirus-pandemic

The decline of women's research production during the coronavirus pandemic Preprints analysis suggests a disproportionate impact on early career researchers. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01294-9

How female academics are losing ground during the pandemic Early analyses suggest that female academics are posting fewer preprints and starting fewer research projects than their male peers. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update: Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.10194

Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic We study the disproportionate impact of the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak on female and male academics' research productivity in social science. The lockdown has caused substantial disruptions to academic activities, requiring people to work from home. How this disruption affects productivity and the related gender equity is an important operations and societal question. We collect data from the largest open-access preprint repository for social science on 41,858 research preprints in 18 disciplines produced by 76,832 authors across 25 countries over a span of two years. We use a difference-in-differences approach leveraging the exogenous pandemic shock. Our results indicate that, in the 10 weeks after the lockdown in the United States, although the total research productivity increased by 35%, female academics' productivity dropped by 13.9% relative to that of male academics. We also show that several disciplines drive such gender inequality. Finally, we find that this intensified productivity gap is more pronounced for academics in top-ranked universities, and the effect exists in six other countries. Our work points out the fairness issue in productivity caused by the lockdown, a finding that universities will find helpful when evaluating faculty productivity. It also helps organizations realize the potential unintended consequences that can arise from telecommuting. arxiv.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pandemic-lockdown-holding-back-female-academics-data-show

Pandemic lockdown holding back female academics, data show Unequal childcare burden blamed for fall in share of published research by women since schools shut, but funding bodies look to alleviate career impact timeshighereducation.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Men and women have been disproportionately affected [by the pandemic]; for many [research] outputs, women were about 10 percentage points more likely than men to have decreased work." https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/what-about-research-scholarship-and-covid-19/

What about Research? Scholarship and COVID-19 - Ithaka S+R While there have been a number of research initiatives centered on supporting faculty in shifting to virtual instruction in light of the COVID-19 sr.ithaka.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Our female respondents reported larger declines in the time they could devote to research than their male colleagues. And scientists with young children appear to have been particularly hard-hit, especially women." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0921-y

Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists - Nature Human Behaviour COVID-19 has not affected all scientists equally. A survey of principal investigators indicates that female scientists, those in the ‘bench sciences’ and, especially, scientists with young children experienced a substantial decline in time devoted to research. This could have important short- and longer-term effects on their careers, which institution leaders and funders need to address carefully. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "The proportion of #COVID19 papers w/ a woman 1st author was 19% lower than...for papers pub'd in the same journals in 2019...Women’s representation as 1st authors of COVID-19 research was particularly low for papers pub'd in March & April 2020." https://elifesciences.org/articles/58807

Meta-Research: COVID-19 medical papers have fewer women first authors than expected Lockdowns in the United States caused by the COVID-19 pandemic appear related to a decrease in the number of women publishing research papers, especially as first authors. elifesciences.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Comparing 2020 with 2019, there was a 4% reduction in the percentage of women first authors [in @JAMASurgery], a 6% reduction of women last authors, and a 7% reduction in women as corresponding author." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2769186

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update (from April). "Six weeks into widespread self-quarantine, editors of academic journals have started noticing a trend: Women...seem to be submitting fewer papers." https://thelily.com/women-academics-seem-to-be-submitting-fewer-papers-during-coronavirus-never-seen-anything-like-it-says-one-editor/ https://www.thelily.com/women-academics-seem-to-be-submitting-fewer-papers-during-coronavirus-never-seen-anything-like-it-says-one-editor/

Women academics seem to be submitting fewer papers during coronavirus. ‘Never seen anything like it,’ says one editor. Men are submitting up to 50 percent more thelily.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women are advising policymakers, designing clinical trials, coordinating field studies and leading data collection and analysis, but you would never know it from the media coverage of the pandemic." https://timeshighereducation.com/blog/women-science-are-battling-both-covid-19-and-patriarchy https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/women-science-are-battling-both-covid-19-and-patriarchy

Women in science are battling both Covid-19 and the patriarchy The pandemic has worsened longstanding sexist and racist inequalities in science pushing many of us to say ‘I’m done’, write 35 female scientists  timeshighereducation.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Summarizing some of the research in this thread. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/women-in-science-may-suffer-lasting-career-damage-from-covid-19/

Women in Science May Suffer Lasting Career Damage from COVID-19 Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives. scientificamerican.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Months [after the lockdown began], journal submission rates for women have improved....But the...outlook...remains poor, with [many] K-12 schools still closed, childcare options & other services still...reduced, & a bumpy teaching semester ahead." https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/08/20/womens-journal-submission-rates-continue-fall

Women's journal submission rates continue to fall Women's journal submission rates fell as their caring responsibilities jumped due to COVID-19. Without meaningful interventions, the trend is likely to continue. insidehighered.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Hopeful editorial on "how we [women] can be better and do better as editors, academics and individuals for ourselves, our colleagues and our journal." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10691-020-09435-1

A Wench’s Guide to Surviving a ‘Global’ Pandemic Crisis: Feminist Publishing in a Time of COVID-19 - Feminist Legal Studies It has been quite a year so far(!) and as the wenches we are, we have been taking our time to collect our thoughts and reflections before sharing them at t link.springer.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update (from June, missed at the time). https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31412-4/fulltext

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/science/covid-universities-women.html

The Virus Moved Female Faculty to the Brink. Will Universities Help? (Published 2020) The pandemic is a new setback for women in academia who already faced obstacles on the path to advancing their research and careers. nytimes.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts [to Elsevier journals] than men during the COVID-19 lockdown months. This deficit was especially pronounced among women in more advanced stages of their career." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3712813… https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3712813

Only Second-Class Tickets for Women in the COVID-19 Race. A Study on Manuscript Submissions and Reviews in 2329 Elsevier Journals During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the submission rate to scholarly journals increased abnormally. Given that most academics were forced to work papers.ssrn.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "A new study of enormous scale supports what numerous smaller studies have demonstrated throughout the pandemic: female academics are taking extended lockdowns on the chin, in terms of their comparative scholarly productivity." https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/20/large-scale-study-backs-other-research-showing-relative-declines-womens-research

Large-scale study backs up other research showing relative declines in women's research productivity during COVID-19 Large-scale study backs up other research showing relative declines in women's research productivity during COVID-19. insidehighered.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Even among elite scientists a pattern of stratified productivity and recognition by gender remains, with more prominent gaps in recognition." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240903

Gender gaps in research productivity and recognition among elite scientists in the U.S., Canada, and South Africa This study builds upon the literature documenting gender disparities in science by investigating research productivity and recognition among elite scientists in three countries. This analysis departs from both the general comparison of researchers across organizational settings and academic appointments on one hand, and the definition of “elite” by the research outcome variables on the other, which are common in previous studies. Instead, this paper’s approach considers the stratification of scientific careers by carefully constructing matched samples of men and women holding research chairs in Canada, the United States and South Africa, along with a control group of departmental peers. The analysis is based on a unique, hand-curated dataset including 943 researchers, which allows for a systematic comparison of successful scientists vetted through similar selection mechanisms. Our results show that even among elite scientists a pattern of stratified productivity and recognition by gender remains, with more prominent gaps in recognition. Our results point to the need for gender equity initiatives in science policy to critically examine assessment criteria and evaluation mechanisms to emphasize multiple expressions of research excellence. journals.plos.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Optimistically, many academics thought initially that [remote work] might lead to a surge in research productivity....[If so, however,] all indications suggest that this has been a benefit for men in science, and not women." https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008370… https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008370

Ten simple rules for women principal investigators during a pandemic journals.plos.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. An argument to qualify or reinterpret the research (cited in this twitter thread above) showing a drop in research publications by women during the pandemic. https://publisherad.medium.com/the-covid-surge-in-research-papers-explaining-the-gender-disparity-d6ed1a925507

The COVID-surge in research papers: explaining the gender-disparity Edit: since writing this post, I have been able to confirm that rejected article tracking data shows a surge in the publication of rejected articles in journals which coincides with the timing of the… clearskiesadam.medium.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. I missed this from November 2019 (note, prepandemic). * original paper https://www.rsc.org/globalassets/04-campaigning-outreach/campaigning/gender-bias/gender-bias-report-final.pdf * summary https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03438-y

Huge study documents gender gap in chemistry publishing Analysis finds female-led papers are more likely to be rejected, and less likely to be cited, than those with male corresponding authors. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts [to Elsevier journals] than men during the #COVID19 lockdown months. This deficit was especially pronounced among women in more advanced stages of their career." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3712813… https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3712813

Only Second-Class Tickets for Women in the COVID-19 Race. A Study on Manuscript Submissions and Reviews in 2329 Elsevier Journals During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the submission rate to scholarly journals increased abnormally. Given that most academics were forced to work papers.ssrn.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "16% fewer women were lead authors for articles published on the preprint-platform medRxiv between December 2019 and April 2020, according to the IT professor Cassidy Sugimoto in an analysis published in Nature Index." https://www.horizons-mag.ch/2020/12/03/fewer-women-published-and-a-threat-to-open-access/

Fewer women published, and a threat to Open Access - Horizons Our statistics here show there was a striking drop in the number of women publishing preprints during the lockdown. And millions of Open-Access articles are in danger of disappearing from the Internet. horizons-mag.ch

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Although researchers submitted more papers to journals than last year, on average, growth in submissions from female authors trailed behind growth from male authors across all subject areas, and senior women saw the largest paper penalty." https://nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03564-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03564-y

How a torrent of COVID science changed research publishing — in seven charts A flood of coronavirus research swept websites and journals this year. It changed how and what scientists study, a Nature analysis shows. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Compared to their male colleagues…mid-career women are spending less time on their primary research, writing less, reading fewer journal articles, applying for fewer grants, dedicating less time to research and publishing fewer articles." https://blog.degruyter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Locked-Down-Burned-Out-Publishing-in-a-pandemic_Dec-2020.pdf https://blog.degruyter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Locked-Down-Burned-Out-Publishing-in-a-pandemic_Dec-2020.pdf

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update, but on acceptance rates rather than submission rates. "Manuscripts submitted by women or coauthored by women are generally not penalized during…peer review…Manuscripts by [women] had even a higher probability of success in many cases." https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/2/eabd0299 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/2/eabd0299

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. This looks like good news, but it's #paywalled and I can't read it. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/female-academics-bounced-back-publishing-lockdowns-eased

Female academics bounced back in publishing as lockdowns eased Percentage of papers with female authors rose markedly in latter part of 2020 timeshighereducation.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. https://nap.edu/catalog/26061/impact-of-covid-19-on-the-careers-of-women-in-academic-sciences-engineering-and-medicine From Ch 2, p. 7: "With variations by discipline, women… published fewer papers & received fewer citations… between March 2020 & December 2020 (Amano-Patino et al., 2020: Andersen et al., 2020; Gabster et al., 2020)." https://nap.edu/read/26061/chapter/2#7… https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26061/impact-of-covid-19-on-the-careers-of-women-in-academic-sciences-engineering-and-medicine From https://www.nap.edu/read/26061/chapter/2#7

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Download a PDF of "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine" by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for free. nap.nationalacademies.org

Read "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine" at NAP.edu Read chapter Summary: The spring of 2020 marked a change in how almost everyone conducted their personal and professional lives, both within science, tech... nap.nationalacademies.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "[Early in the] pandemic, MS submissions by female researchers to preprint servers across disciplines dropped significantly or increased less than their male colleagues. [The same happened] for womxn-led medical studies related to this pandemic." https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001100

Rebuild the Academy: Supporting academic mothers during COVID-19 and beyond The COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting the many long-standing inequalities that academic mothers face. This Essay describes solutions for a more equitable academia, now and in the future, maintaining that rather than rebuilding what we once knew, we should be the architects of a new world. journals.plos.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "The proportion of women publishing in biomedical fields during the pandemic drops in average for 9.5% across disciplines and research topics….The impact is particularly pronounced for papers related to COVID-19 research." https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/25379/accepted https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/25379/accepted

Gender Disparity in the Authorship of Biomedical Research Publications During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Observational Study Journal of Medical Internet Research - International Scientific Journal for Medical Research, Information and Communication on the Internet preprints.jmir.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

On the @PLOSBiology piece above. "Getting this paper pub'd was a bit of a struggle…[A] few journals [said they'd] already pub'd…about the impact of #COVID19 on women…'Here, ironically, was a [piece] written by moms…juggling kids & we were…too late.'" https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2021/march/helping-academic-mothers-daycare-pandemic/

Helping academic mothers Essay offers potential solutions for challenges faced by mothers in academia during pandemic udel.edu

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "While the majority of faculty, regardless of gender, indicated that they worked much less on research than planned during the fall [2020] semester (57%), there was a 12 percentage point gap between women (62%) and men (50%)." https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-disproportionate-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-women-and-caregivers-in-academia/

The Disproportionate Impact of the Pandemic on Women and Caregivers in Academia - Ithaka S+R Evidence is mounting that women in academia have disproportionately been affected by the pandemic. Recent research points to new gender gaps in productivity and publishing, with fewer women publishing articles and manuscripts. And in addition to these professional challenges, women in academia are also facing unique personal challenges during the pandemic, including balancing childcare and home responsibilities while working towards achieving tenure in an academic pipeline where it is already challenging for women to succeed. sr.ithaka.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women scientists have experienced a productivity penalty from the social and structural changes accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, but not in all authorship positions." https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8hp7m/

The Pandemic Penalty: The gendered effects of COVID-19 on scientific productivity Academia serves as a valuable case for studying the effects of social forces on workplace productivity, using a concrete measure of output: scholarly papers. Many academics, especially women, have experienced unprecedented challenges to scholarly productivity during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The authors analyze the gender composition of more than 450,000 authorships in the arXiv and bioRxiv scholarly preprint repositories from before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis reveals that the underrepresentation of women scientists in the last authorship position necessary for retention and promotion in the sciences is growing more inequitable. The authors find differences between the arXiv and bioRxiv repositories in how gender affects first, middle, and sole authorship submission rates before and during the pandemic. A review of existing research and theory outlines potential mechanisms underlying this widening gender gap in productivity during COVID-19. The authors aggregate recommendations for institutional change that could ameliorate challenges to women’s productivity during the pandemic and beyond. osf.io

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Several studies have found that women have published fewer papers, led fewer clinical trials and received less recognition for their expertise during the pandemic." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/health/women-stem-pandemic.html

Could the Pandemic Prompt an ‘Epidemic of Loss’ of Women in the Sciences? (Published 2021) Even before the pandemic, many female scientists felt unsupported in their fields. Now, some are hitting a breaking point. nytimes.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women were substantially under-represented as authors among articles in leading medical journals [in 2020, but] barriers to women’s authorship…during COVID-19 are not significantly larger than barriers that preceded the pandemic." https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/7/e051224

Gender disparity between authors in leading medical journals during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional review Objectives Evaluate gender differences in authorship of COVID-19 articles in high-impact medical journals compared with other topics. Design Cross-sectional review. Data sources Medline database. Eligibility criteria Articles published from 1 January to 31 December 2020 in the seven leading general medical journals by impact factor. Article types included primary research, reviews, editorials and commentaries. Data extraction Key data elements were whether the study topic was related to COVID-19 and names of the principal and the senior authors. A hierarchical approach was used to determine the likely gender of authors. Logistic regression assessed the association of study characteristics, including COVID-19 status, with authors’ likely gender; this was quantified using adjusted ORs (aORs). Results We included 2252 articles, of which 748 (33.2%) were COVID-19-related and 1504 (66.8%) covered other topics. A likely gender was determined for 2138 (94.9%) principal authors and 1890 (83.9%) senior authors. Men were significantly more likely to be both principal (1364 men; 63.8%) and senior (1332 men; 70.5%) authors. COVID-19-related articles were not associated with the odds of men being principal (aOR 0.99; 95% CI 0.81 to 1.21; p=0.89) or senior authors (aOR 0.96; 95% CI 0.78 to 1.19; p=0.71) relative to other topics. Articles with men as senior authors were more likely to have men as principal authors (aOR 1.49; 95% CI 1.21 to 1.83; p<0.001). Men were more likely to author articles reporting original research and those with corresponding authors based outside the USA and Europe. Conclusions Women were substantially under-represented as authors among articles in leading medical journals; this was not significantly different for COVID-19-related articles. Study limitations include potential for misclassification bias due to the name-based analysis. Results suggest that barriers to women’s authorship in high-impact journals during COVID-19 are not significantly larger than barriers that preceded the pandemic and that are likely to continue beyond it. PROSPERO registration number CRD42020186702. Data are available upon reasonable request. bmjopen.bmj.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "How can tenure and promotion procedures adequately reflect gendered disparities in Covid impact?" https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-pandemic-hit-female-academics-hardest

The Pandemic Hit Female Academics Hardest Women, who were already disproportionately burdened, have been hit especially hard by the pandemic. How should institutions of higher learning respond? chronicle.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Summarizing pandemic-specific gender differences in productivity & aiming to understand the causes of these diffs, inc those that existed before the pandemic. "Parental engagement is a more powerful variable…than the mere existence of children." https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.05376

The academic motherload: Models of parenting engagement and the effect on academic productivity and performance Gender differences in research productivity are well documented, and have been mostly explained by access parental leave and child-related responsibilities. Those explanations are based on the assumption that women take on the majority of childcare responsibilities, and take the same level of leave at the birth of a child. Changing social dynamics around parenting has seen fathers increasingly take an active role in parenting. This demands a more nuanced approach to understanding how parenting affects both men and women. Using a global survey of 11,226 academic parents, this study investigates the effect of parental engagement (Lead, Dual (shared), and Satellite parenting), and partner type, on measures of research productivity and impact for men and for women. It also analyzes the effect of different levels of parental leave on academic productivity. Results show that the parenting penalty for men and women is a function of the level of engagement in parenting activities. Men who serve in lead roles suffer similar penalties, but women are more likely to serve in lead parenting roles and to be more engaged across time and tasks. Taking a period of parental leave is associated with higher levels of productivity, however the productivity advantage is lost for the US-sample at 6 months, and at 12-months for the non-US sample. These results suggest that parental engagement is a more powerful variable to explain gender differences in academic productivity than the mere existence of children, and that policies should that factor into account. arxiv.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the number of submissions [to Renaissance Quarterly from @RSAorg] by female scholars fell sharply….We look forward to rectifying this imbalance in our 2022 volume and beyond." https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterly/article/editors-note/213946973F7DFA92BB7D5F53B2BF4D64

Sorry, an error occurred Welcome to Cambridge Core cambridge.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "During the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics." https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257919… https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257919

Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unusually high submission rate of scholarly articles. Given that most academics were forced to work from home, the competing demands for familial duties may have penalized the scientific productivity of women. To test this hypothesis, we looked at submitted manuscripts and peer review activities for all Elsevier journals between February and May 2018-2020, including data on over 5 million authors and referees. Results showed that during the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics. The rate of the peer-review invitation acceptance showed a less pronounced gender pattern with women taking on a greater service responsibility for journals, except for health & medicine, the field where the impact of COVID-19 research has been more prominent. Our findings suggest that the first wave of the pandemic has created potentially cumulative advantages for men. journals.plos.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update: "Articles [in medicine] written by women as both primary and senior authors had approximately half the number of citations as those authored by men as both primary and senior authors." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781617 PS: I'm expanding this thread beyond pandemic effects. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781617 PS:

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Papers by women are cited less often than papers by men. But they get greater reader engagement & more often aim at social progress. "Citation impact vs interest among readers is related to the aims of research & there is a gender difference here." http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/113101/1/impactofsocialsciences_2021_11_15_female_researchers_are_more_read.pdf… eprints.lse.ac.uk/113101/1/impac…

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Article submissions to @AnnFamMed grew during the pandemic. But the submission gender gap also grew. https://www.annfammed.org/content/20/1/32 Summary of this article. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/01/covid-gender-gap/

COVID-19 and Gender Differences in Family Medicine Scholarship This bibliometric analysis seeks to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted submission rates to Annals of Family Medicine by gender. Women represented 46.3% of all manuscript submissions included in our study (n = 1,964/4,238), spanning from January 1, 2015 to July 15, 2020. The overall volume of submissions increased during COVID-19 in comparison to pre-pandemic months; however, this increase was not evenly distributed among men and women (122% increase vs 101% increase, respectively). In the early months of the pandemic, 244 submissions were authored by men (58.5%), and 173 submissions were authored by women (41.5%). The gap in women’s submission rates is troubling, as it suggests they may be at greater risk of falling behind male colleagues during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. annfammed.org

Gender disparities in publishing may be widening for physicians due to COVID-19 A new study contributes to a growing body of evidence that the pandemic caused unique career disruptions for women as they became stretched thin during remote work, causing stress, burnout and anxiety news.northwestern.edu

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "While female inventors' overall involvement in patenting activity is not that high, the share of female inventors increases over the time period in question [1978 - 2019] from 1.2% to 8.9%." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157722000086

Female inventors over time: Factors affecting female Inventors’ innovation performance The aim of this paper is to explore the collaboration of female inventors, how it affects their innovation production and whether it influences their … sciencedirect.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update, contrary to other studies in this thread: "We found no significant differences between men & women in publication patterns [2019-2021] overall. However, we found significant differences…in different disciplines." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01655515211068168

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Only 3 fields had a female last author majority by 2018…Female first-authored research tended to be more cited than male first-authored research in most fields (59%), although with a maximum difference of only 5.1%." https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0165551520942729

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Most studies in this thread used software to guess the gender of authors from their names. But "more than 50 pubs representing over 15,000 journals globally are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity, as well as their gender." https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00426-7

The giant plan to track diversity in research journals Efforts to chart and reduce bias in scholarly publishing will ask authors, reviewers and editors to disclose their race or ethnicity. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Idea building on prev tweet: @ORCID_Org could add fields for self-identified gender & ethnicity. With user consent, the fields could be public, e.g. for research just like that in this thread. No need to guess gender from names or trust (upcoming) publisher method of labelling.

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Larger editorial boards were less likely to have women dominance. Women editor-in-chief dominance was significantly associated with women-dominant editorial board." https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(22)00095-7/fulltext

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Disaggregating [Norwegian scientific authors] by scientific field, institutional affiliation, academic position, and age changes [and reduces] the gender gaps that appear at the aggregate level." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-022-00820-0

Identifying gender disparities in research performance: the importance of comparing apples with apples - Higher Education Many studies on research productivity and performance suggest that men consistently outperform women. However, women and men are spread unevenly throughout link.springer.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "In multiple academic disciplines having a perceived gender of 'woman' is associated w a lower than expected rate of citations…We show that…the tendency of people to interact w others…like themselves…is sufficient to reproduce observed biases." https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12555 https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12555

Modeling observed gender imbalances in academic citation practices In multiple academic disciplines, having a perceived gender of `woman' is associated with a lower than expected rate of citations. In some fields, that disparity is driven primarily by the citations of men and is increasing over time despite increasing diversification of the profession. It is likely that complex social interactions and individual ideologies shape these disparities. Computational models of select factors that reproduce empirical observations can help us understand some of the minimal driving forces behind these complex phenomena and therefore aid in their mitigation. Here, we present a simple agent-based model of citation practices within academia, in which academics generate citations based on three factors: their estimate of the collaborative network of the field, how they sample that estimate, and how open they are to learning about their field from other academics. We show that increasing homophily -- or the tendency of people to interact with others more like themselves -- in these three domains is sufficient to reproduce observed biases in citation practices. We find that homophily in sampling an estimate of the field influences total citation rates, and openness to learning from new and unfamiliar authors influences the change in those citations over time. We next model a real-world intervention -- the citation diversity statement -- which has the potential to influence both of these parameters. We determine a parameterization of our model that matches the citation practices of academics who use the citation diversity statement. This parameterization paired with an openness to learning from many new authors can result in citation practices that are equitable and stable over time. Ultimately, our work underscores the importance of homophily in shaping citation practices and provides evidence that specific actions may mitigate biased citation practices in academia. arxiv.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women [authors are] under-rep'd…in JAMA (at its peak, 38.1% of articles had a female 1st author in 2011) & NEJM (peaking at 28.2% in 2002)…Rate of increase…so slow that it will take more than a century for both journals to reach gender parity." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40615-022-01280-z

The Under-representation and Stagnation of Female, Black, and Hispanic Authorship in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine - Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Publication in leading medical journals is critical to knowledge dissemination and academic advancement alike. Leveraging a novel dataset comprised of near link.springer.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. In veterinary science journals, "females [are] underrepresented in the group of managing editors (32.2% females vs 67.2% males), editors (34.5% females vs 65.1% males) and others (33.3% females vs. 65.4% males)." #paywalled https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034528822001217

Gender representation on journal editorial boards in the field of veterinary sciences Despite the increased entry of women into the veterinary profession over the past several decades, women remain substantially underrepresented in seni… sciencedirect.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. At @BrainComms "the representation of women authors and reviewers decreased…in the months following COVID-19 restrictions, suggesting a possible exacerbating role of the pandemic on existing disparities in science publication." https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/article/4/3/fcac077/6554271

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women in research teams are significantly less likely to be credited with authorship than are men." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04966-w

Women are credited less in science than men - Nature There is a well-documented gap between the observed number of works produced by women and by men in science, with clear consequences for the retention and promotion of women1. The gap might be a result of productivity differences2–5, or it might be owing to women’s contributions not being acknowledged6,7. Here we find that at least part of this gap is the result of unacknowledged contributions: women in research teams are significantly less likely than men to be credited with authorship. The findings are consistent across three very different sources of data. Analysis of the first source—large-scale administrative data on research teams, team scientific output and attribution of credit—show that women are significantly less likely to be named on a given article or patent produced by their team relative to their male peers. The gender gap in attribution is present across most scientific fields and almost all career stages. The second source—an extensive survey of authors—similarly shows that women’s scientific contributions are systematically less likely to be recognized. The third source—qualitative responses—suggests that the reason that women are less likely to be credited is because their work is often not known, is not appreciated or is ignored. At least some of the observed gender gap in scientific output may be owing not to differences in scientific contribution, but rather to differences in attribution. The difference between the number of men and women listed as authors on scientific papers and inventors on patents is at least partly attributable to unacknowledged contributions by women scientists. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Here's a @washingtonpost summary of the study above. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/22/women-scientists-authorship-credit-study/

Female scientists don’t get the credit they deserve. A study proves it. Female scientists are “significantly less likely” to be credited on scholarly articles or named on patents that they contribute to, a Nature study found. washingtonpost.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Here's a @ScienceMagazine summary of the study above. https://www.science.org/content/article/women-scientists-don-t-get-authorship-they-should-new-study-suggests

Women scientists don’t get authorship they should, new study suggests It’s a common story, but “I didn’t know the scale of it,” one author says science.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "We review gender bias in scholarly publications and discuss examples of #openaccess research publications that highlight a positive advantage for women." https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/10/3/22

Changing the Academic Gender Narrative through Open Access In this article, we ask whether dominant narratives of gender and performance within academic institutions are masking stories that may be both more complex and potentially more hopeful than those which are often told using publication-related data. Influenced by world university rankings, institutions emphasise so-called ‘excellent’ research practices: publish in ‘high impact’, elite subscription journals indexed by the commercial bibliographic databases that inform the various ranking systems. In particular, we ask whether data relating to institutional demographics and open access publications could support a different story about the roles that women are playing as pioneers and practitioners of open scholarship. We review gender bias in scholarly publications and discuss examples of open access research publications that highlight a positive advantage for women. Using analysis of workforce demographics and open research data from our Open Knowledge Initiative project, we explore relationships and correlations between academic gender and open access research output from universities in Australia and the United Kingdom. This opens a conversation about different possibilities and models for exploring research output by gender and changing the dominant narrative of deficit in academic publishing. mdpi.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Gendered differences in the productivity and prominence of mid-career researchers can be largely explained by differences in their coauthorship networks…Collaboration networks represent an important form of unequally distributed social capital." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32604-6

Untangling the network effects of productivity and prominence among scientists - Nature Communications While inequalities in science are common, most efforts to understand them treat scientists as isolated individuals, ignoring the network effects of collaboration. Here, we develop models that untangle the network effects of productivity defined as paper counts, and prominence referring to high-impact publications, of individual scientists from their collaboration networks. We find that gendered differences in the productivity and prominence of mid-career researchers can be largely explained by differences in their coauthorship networks. Hence, collaboration networks act as a form of social capital, and we find evidence of their transferability from senior to junior collaborators, with benefits that decay as researchers age. Collaboration network effects can also explain a large proportion of the productivity and prominence advantages held by researchers at prestigious institutions. These results highlight a substantial role of social networks in driving inequalities in science, and suggest that collaboration networks represent an important form of unequally distributed social capital that shapes who makes what scientific discoveries. While inequalities in science are common, most efforts to understand them treat scientists as isolated individuals, ignoring the network effects of collaboration. Here, the authors develop models that untangle the network effects of productivity and prominence of individual scientists from their collaboration networks. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Journals that require reporting of methods used to determine sex and/or gender have a significantly higher IF [#JIF] and a significantly greater proportion of EIC positions held by women." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795802

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. In the #MENA region, "men publish on average between 11% and 51% more than women, with this gap increasing over time." https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.13520

On the lack of women researchers in the Middle East & North Africa Recent gender policies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have improved legal equality for women with noticeable effects in some countries. The implications of these policies on science, however, is not well-understood. This study applies a bibliometric lens to describe the landscape of gender disparities in scientific research in MENA. Specifically, we examine 1.7 million papers indexed in the Web of Science published by 1.1 million authors from MENA between 2008 and 2020. We used bibliometric indicators to analyse potential disparities between men and women in the share of authors, research productivity, and seniority in authorship. The results show that gender parity is far from being achieved in MENA. Overall, men authors obtain higher representation, research productivity, and seniority. But some countries standout: Tunisia, Lebanon, Turkey, Algeria and Egypt have higher shares or women researchers compared to the rest of MENA countries. The UAE, Qatar, and Jordan have shown progress in terms of women participation in science, but Saudi Arabia lags behind. We find that women are more likely to stop publishing than men and that men publish on average between 11% and 51% more than women, with this gap increasing over time. Finally, men, on average, achieved senior positions in authorship faster than women. Our longitudinal study contributes to a better understanding of gender disparities in science in MENA which is catching up in terms of policy engagement and women representation. However, the results suggest that the effects of the policy changes have yet to materialize into distinct improvement in women's participation and performance in science. arxiv.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update: The Journal of Bone & Mineral Research studied itself. "The acceptance rate [2017-2019] was highest when the first & last authors were of different genders & lowest when both authors were men. Reviewer gender did not influence the outcome." https://asbmr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jbmr.4696

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "We identify gender disparities in the patterns of peer citations and show that these differences are strong enough to accurately predict the scholar’s gender." https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2206070119

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "We find a global bias wherein [physics] papers authored by women are significantly under-cited & papers authored by men are significantly over-cited…[These disparities depend on] who is citing, where they are citing & what they are citing." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01770-1

Citation inequity and gendered citation practices in contemporary physics - Nature Physics The under-attribution of women’s contributions to scientific scholarship is well known and well studied. One measure of this under-attribution is the citation gap between men and women: the under-citation of papers authored by women relative to expected rates coupled with an over-citation of papers authored by men relative to expected rates. Here we explore this citation gap in contemporary physics. We find a global bias wherein papers authored by women are significantly under-cited, and papers authored by men are significantly over-cited. Moreover, we find that citation behaviour varies along several dimensions, such that imbalances differ according to who is citing, where they are citing and what they are citing. Specifically, citation imbalance in favour of man-authored papers is highest for papers authored by men, papers published in general physics journals and papers for which citing authors probably have less domain or author familiarity. Our results suggest that although deciding which papers to cite is an individual choice, the cumulative effects of these choices needlessly harm a subset of scholars. We discuss several strategies for the mitigation of these effects, including conscious behavioural changes at the individual, journal and community levels. The under-citation of woman authors in physics is quantified and measures that could overcome this inequity are presented. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Here's a good summary of the previous article in this thread. https://physicsworld.com/a/citing-like-its-1995-why-women-physicists-find-their-papers-referenced-less/

Citing like it's 1995: why women physicists find their papers referenced less – Physics World Analysis shows that general physics journals have the largest citation gap between men and women in physics physicsworld.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Here's another good summary of the same study. https://www.science.org/content/article/women-researchers-cited-less-men-heres-why-what-can-done

Women researchers are cited less than men. Here’s why—and what can be done about it Two studies of citations in physics highlight factors contributing to this gender disparity science.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women's share of [highly-cited researchers] would need to increase by 100% in health & social sciences, 200% in agriculture, bio, earth, & enviro sciences, 300% in math & physics, & 500% in chem, CS, & engineering to close the gap with men." https://direct.mit.edu/qss/article/doi/10.1162/qss_a_00218/113322/Gender-Gap-Among-Highly-Cited-Researchers-2014

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Study of the 57 @IOPPublishing journals: "Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find that manuscript submissions from women decreased during the pandemic, although the rate of increased submissions evident prior to the pandemic slowed." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01365-4

Scientific authorship by gender: trends before and during a global pandemic - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Many fields of science are still dominated by men. COVID-19 has dramatically changed the nature of work, including for scientists, such as lack of access to key resources and transition to online teaching. Further, scientists face the pandemic-related stressors common to other professions (e.g., childcare, eldercare). As many of these activities fall more heavily on women, the pandemic may have exacerbated gender disparities in science. We analyzed self-identified gender of corresponding author for 119,592 manuscripts from 151 countries submitted January 2019 to July 2021 to the Institute of Physics (IOP) portfolio of 57 academic journals, with disciplines of astronomy and astrophysics, bioscience, environmental science, materials, mathematics, physics, and interdisciplinary research. We consider differences by country, journal, and pre-pandemic versus pandemic periods. Gender was self-identified by corresponding author for 82.9% of manuscripts (N = 99,114 for subset of submissions with gender). Of these manuscripts, authors were 82.1% male, 17.8% female, and 0.08% non-binary. Most authors were male for all countries (country-specific values: range 0.0–100.0%, median 86.1%) and every journal (journal-specific values range 63.7–91.5%, median 83.7%). The contribution of female authors was slightly higher in the pandemic (18.7%) compared to pre-pandemic (16.5%). However, prior to the pandemic, the percent of submissions from women had been increasing, and this value slowed during the pandemic. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find that manuscript submissions from women decreased during the pandemic, although the rate of increased submissions evident prior to the pandemic slowed. In both pre-pandemic and pandemic periods, authorship was overwhelmingly male for all journals, countries, and fields. Further research is needed on impacts of the pandemic on other measures of scientific productivity (e.g., accepted manuscripts, teaching), scientific position (e.g., junior vs. senior scholars), as well as the underlying gender imbalance that persisted before and during the pandemic. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women were 2.5 times as likely as men to forgo a professional development in order to pay APCs." https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-survey-many-researchers-face-difficulties-paying-open-access-fees

AAAS Survey: Many Researchers Face Difficulties Paying Open Access Fees Policies meant to ensure public access for readers are increasingly affecting publishing opportunities for researchers, creating hidden financial and career consequences, according to a new survey released by AAAS. aaas.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Publications by women are cited less by @Wikipedia than expected…& less likely to be cited than those by men…Gender- or country-based inequalities varies by research field & the gender-country…bias is prominent in math-intensive STEM fields." https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.24723

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. In psychology, "relative to ratios as students and faculty, women are underrepresented as editorial-board members (41%) and…as editors-in-chief (34%)." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916221117159

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

I just used a new tool from @HarvardLILto save this thread as a PDF. https://archive.social I did it mainly to test the tool. But if you're interested, I put a #CC0 copy of the file in the @InternetArchive. https://ia601400.us.archive.org/12/items/suber-gender-discrimination-nov-2022.pdf/suber-gender-discrimination-Nov-2022.pdf.pdf https://archive.social I https://ia601400.us.archive.org/12/items/suber-gender-discrimination-nov-2022.pdf/suber-gender-discrimination-Nov-2022.pdf.pdf

Save Your Threads High-fidelity capture of Twitter threads as sealed PDFs on social.perma.cc. An experiment of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. social.perma.cc

Internet Archive: Page Not Found ia601400.us.archive.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women’s share of HCRs [highly cited researchers] would need to increase by 100% in health & social sciences, 200% in agriculture, bio, earth & env sciences, 300% in math & physics, & 500% in chemistry, CS & engineering to close the gap with men." https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00218

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. For male authors, the presence of an author photo and bio in an article does not affect citation rates. But "there was a small citation disadvantage of 5% for female authors when they provided a photograph and biography." https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00219

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "I find that (i) female-authored papers are 1%–6% better written than equivalent papers by men; (ii) the gap widens during peer review; …(iv) female-authored papers take longer under review." https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/132/648/2951/6586337

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Women account for less than one in three peer reviewers of medical journals. Women’s representation as peer reviewers is higher in journals with higher percentage of women as editors or with a woman as editor-in-chief." https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/5/e061054.abstract

Cross-sectional study of the relationship between women’s representation among editors and peer reviewers in journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group Objectives To investigate whether there is an association between women’s representation as peer reviewers and editors of medical journals. Methods In this cross-sectional study, the gender of editors and peer reviewers of journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group (BMJ-PG) in 2020 was determined based on given names. Trends over time were analysed for the BMJ between 2009 and 2017. Results Overall, this study included 47 of the 74 journals in the BMJ-PG. Women accounted for 30.2% of the 42 539 peer reviewers, with marked variation from 8% to 50%. Women represented 33.4% of the 555 editors, including 19.2% of the 52 editors-in-chief. There was a moderate positive correlation between the percentage of women as editors and as reviewers (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.590; p<0.0001). The percentage of women as editors, excluding editors-in-chief, was higher when the editor-in-chief was a woman than a man (53.3% vs 29.2%, respectively; p<0.0001). Likewise, the percentage of women as peer reviewers was higher in journals that had a woman as editor-in-chief in comparison with a man (32.0% vs 26.4%, respectively; p<0.0001). There was a slight increase in the percentage of women as peer reviewers from 27.3% in 2009 to 29.7% in 2017 in the BMJ . Conclusions Women account for less than one in three peer reviewers of medical journals. Women’s representation as peer reviewers is higher in journals with higher percentage of women as editors or with a woman as editor-in-chief. It is, thus, imperative to address the persisting gender gap at all levels of the publishing system. Data are available upon reasonable request. All data are available upon request from the corresponding author. bmjopen.bmj.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "The gendered effect observed in [research] production may be related by differential engagement in parenting: men who serve in lead roles suffer similar penalties for parenting engagement, but women are more likely to serve in lead roles." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26258-z

The relationship between parenting engagement and academic performance - Scientific Reports Gender differences in research productivity have been well documented. One frequent explanation of these differences is disproportionate child-related responsibilities for women. However, changing social dynamics around parenting has led to fathers taking an increasingly active role in parenting. This demands a more nuanced approach to understanding the relationship between parenting and productivity for both men and women. To gain insight into associations between parent roles, partner type, research productivity, and research impact, we conducted a global survey that targeted 1.5 million active scientists; we received viable responses from 10,445 parents (< 1% response rate), thus providing a basis for exploratory analyses that shed light on associations between parenting models and research outcomes, across men and women. Results suggest that the gendered effect observed in production may be related by differential engagement in parenting: men who serve in lead roles suffer similar penalties for parenting engagement, but women are more likely to serve in lead roles and to be more engaged across time and tasks, therefore suffering a higher penalty. Taking a period of parental leave is associated with higher levels of productivity; however, the productivity advantage dissipates after six months for the US-sample, and at 12-months for the non-US sample. These results suggest that parental engagement is a more powerful variable to explain gender differences in academic productivity than the mere existence of children, and that policies should factor these labor differentials into account. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. In a database of "81,000 editors serving more than 1,000 journals and 15 disciplines over five decades" only 14% were women and only 8% were editors in chief. Male editors published in their own journals more often than female editors. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01498-1

Gender inequality and self-publication are common among academic editors - Nature Human Behaviour Scientific editors shape the content of academic journals and set standards for their fields. Yet, the degree to which the gender makeup of editors reflects that of scientists, and the rate at which editors publish in their own journals, are not entirely understood. Here, we use algorithmic tools to infer the gender of 81,000 editors serving more than 1,000 journals and 15 disciplines over five decades. Only 26% of authors in our dataset are women, and we find even fewer women among editors (14%) and editors-in-chief (8%). Career length explains the gender gap among editors, but not editors-in-chief. Moreover, by analysing the publication records of 20,000 editors, we find that 12% publish at least one-fifth, and 6% publish at least one-third, of their papers in the journal they edit. Editors-in-chief tend to self-publish at a higher rate. Finally, compared with women, men have a higher increase in the rate at which they publish in a journal soon after becoming its editor. Using publication and editorial team composition records from more than 1,000 journals, Liu and coauthors uncover pervasive gender inequalities among academic editors. Only 8% of editors-in-chief are women. Nearly 6% of editors publish one-third of all their papers in the journal they edit, and this self-publication pattern is stronger among men editors. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. Missed this one from 2017: "Here we present evidence that women of all ages have fewer opportunities to take part in peer review." https://www.nature.com/articles/541455a

Journals invite too few women to referee - Nature Jory Lerback and Brooks Hanson present an analysis that reveals evidence of gender bias in peer review for scholarly publications. nature.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "This study evaluated the inclusion and representation of women serving on school #psychology journal editorial boards from 1965 to 2020." (#paywalled) https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/spq0000541

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "The objective of the current study was to assess the level of gender and geographic inequalities affecting influential researchers, based on the lists of Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs) published annually by Clarivate." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11739-023-03240-9

Gender and geographical inequalities among highly cited researchers: a cross-sectional study (2014–2021) - Internal and Emergency Medicine link.springer.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "We identified 1482 editorial board members [at #pharmacy journals] with only 527 (35.6%) being female…Only 9 journals (21.42%) presented more females among their editorial board members." https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2023.02.018

Female representation among editorial boards of social, clinical, and educational pharmacy journals Recent studies on editorial team members of healthcare journals have been showing disparities in this distribution. However, there are limited data wi… sciencedirect.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "For the [UK @EPSRC research] projects examined as part of this study, over 70%…have no female representation, and less than 15% have a female lead." https://academic.oup.com/rev/advance-article/doi/10.1093/reseval/rvad008/7074305

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Of the 3m submissions to major…medical journals in the 1st half of 2020, just 36% were from women. This gender gap applied…across all authorship positions, in…top tier & lower impact journals & was esp pronounced among younger…female authors." https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p788

How pandemic publishing struck a blow to the visibility of women’s expertise The biases in scientific publishing during the pandemic damaged women’s visibility, recognition, and career advancement, reports Jocalyn Clark Before covid-19, Reshma Jagsi had a thriving clinical and research career. As a full time physician and deputy department chair of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan, USA, she was ascending the leadership ladder before the world around her went into lockdown. “Everything was an emergency, and [all my colleagues were] working around the clock out of a sense of need, because the house was on fire,” she says. It felt as though “I was drowning.” On top of the acute emergency of helping sick patients, Jagsi was developing rapid treatment guidelines for covid-19 and reorganising research efforts for colleagues—while caring for her elderly mother and tutoring two schoolchildren. Other colleagues with younger children experienced high levels of anxiety, their careers completely sidelined by the pandemic. She says, “During an emergency, it didn’t matter how urgent the need was and how great your expertise was: if you’ve got a toddler who needs your attention and you can’t rely on your parents or your neighbours or day care, what else are you going to do?” When laboratories, operating rooms, and clinical trial sites worldwide closed because of national lockdowns, millions of people working in science found an opportunity to write, driven by a desire to help as well as the need to recover losses or to stay relevant and maintain publication records—the chief currency in research careers.1 Clinicians and academics were eager to secure authorships.2 But the covid-19 publishing game had by no means an equal playing field. Of the three million submissions to major health and medical journals in the first half of 2020, just 36% were from women. This gender gap applied to research and non-research articles, across … bmj.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Publications led by female authors did not differ between DA [double-anonymized] and SA [single-anonymized] journals. Moreover, female-leading articles did not increase after changes from SA to DA peer-review." https://peerj.com/articles/15186/

Overcoming the gender bias in ecology and evolution: is the double-anonymized peer review an effective pathway over time? Male researchers dominate scientific production in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, potential mechanisms to avoid this gender imbalance remain poorly explored in STEM, including ecology and evolution areas. In the last decades, changes in the peer-review process towards double-anonymized (DA) have increased among ecology and evolution (EcoEvo) journals. Using comprehensive data on articles from 18 selected EcoEvo journals with an impact factor >1, we tested the effect of the DA peer-review process in female-leading (i.e., first and senior authors) articles. We tested whether the representation of female-leading authors differs between double and single-anonymized (SA) peer-reviewed journals. Also, we tested if the adoption of the DA by previous SA journals has increased the representativeness of female-leading authors over time. We found that publications led by female authors did not differ between DA and SA journals. Moreover, female-leading articles did not increase after changes from SA to DA peer-review. Tackling female underrepresentation in science is a complex task requiring many interventions. Still, our results highlight that adopting the DA peer-review system alone could be insufficient in fostering gender equality in EcoEvo scientific publications. Ecologists and evolutionists understand how diversity is important to ecosystems’ resilience in facing environmental changes. The question remaining is: why is it so difficult to promote and keep this “diversity” in addition to equity and inclusion in the academic environment? We thus argue that all scientists, mentors, and research centers must be engaged in promoting solutions to gender bias by fostering diversity, inclusion, and affirmative measures. peerj.com

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. "Our meta-analysis…found only small, statistically insignificant gender differences in the journal acceptance process…This does not mean that there was gender parity in every field, time period, and journal." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15291006231163179 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15291006231163179

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

Update. I have two comments on the previous study in this #Mastodon post. https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/110271892132210365

petersuber (@petersuber@fediscience.org) Two comments: 1. On the one hand, I have doubts about the finding of gender parity in journal acceptances. See my long (and still-growing) Twitter thread of evidence for gender bias in academic publishing. https://twitter.com/petersuber/status/1252981139855355904 2. On the other hand, these authors seem to have done a thorough literature review. Moreover, this study is what Daniel Kahneman called an #AdversarialCollaboration, a model I admire and see too rarely in practice. fediscience.org

@petersuber - Peter Suber (@petersuber@fediscience.org)

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