First All-Women Class Of Top Law Journal Editors Leaves Behind A Byline And Legacy

The last three years of reported data all show women leading men in representation in law schools in the US. This past academic year ushered in a new first: women leading the masthead of each top law journal.

GandS_metascience_call.pdf

Major Developments and Events in the Humanities and Scholarly Publishing: 2000–2014

A number of substantive trends in the humanities were evaluated, including undergraduate and graduate student enrollments, the number of college faculty members, humanities degrees and major humanities subjects, the impact of the “serials crisis,”...

IOS Press Ebooks - Gender and Geographical Representation on Editorial Board Members of Medical Informatics Journals

Why the gender gap in physics has been stable for more than a century

As a physicist and data scientist with a keen interest in gender inequality, Fariba Karimi was amazed to discover that the gender gap in physics has remained almost unchanged since 1900. As the citation and coauthorship networks in physics expand, women still make up a small proportion—and the gaps between male and female are getting larger in terms of absolute numbers.

Taru Publications

Why is there a citations gender gap in Indian materials science?

Shobhana Narasimhan, chair of the Indian Academy of Science’s initiative on women in science, says attitudes in the field must change more quickly.

Who Gets Recommended? Investigating Gender, Race, and Country Disparities in Paper Recommendations from Large Language Models

This paper investigates the performance of several representative large models in the tasks of literature recommendation and explores potential biases in research exposure. The results indicate that not only LLMs' overall recommendation accuracy remains limited but also the models 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.

Sex and gender reporting in scientific papers now strongly recommended by the Emergency Medicine Journal

Editorial linked to: Astin-Chamberlain R, Pott J, Cole E, et al . Sex and gender reporting in UK emergency medicine trials from 2010 to 2023: a systematic review. Emergency Medicine Journal Published Online First: 11 September 2024. doi: 10.1136/emermed-2024-214054. The under-representation of women in clinical trials has been well documented but even less appreciated is the lack of attention to potential differences in outcomes according to sex and gender. Due to differences in body size and composition, sex hormones and metabolism, as well as important social determinants of health, we cannot infer that research findings in men can always be generalised to women. Just like age, race, education, socioeconomic status, comorbidities and many other categories that our patients fall into, sex and gender can have an effect on the way patients present with the same illness, the way patients respond to medications and the potential for toxicity. Studies have suggested that women with acute myocardial infarction are more likely than men to experience symptoms such as dyspnoea or palpitations in addition to chest pain1 and (once diagnosed) women receive evidence-based treatments less often than men.2 For reasons still not clear, we know that men were more likely to have severe …

Inequality in measuring scholarly success: Variation in the h-index within and between disciplines

Scholars and university administrators have a vested interest in building equitable valuation systems of academic work for both practical (e.g., resource distribution) and more lofty purposes (e.g., what constitutes “good” research). Well-established inequalities in science pose a difficult challenge to those interested in constructing a parsimonious and fair method for valuation as stratification occurs within academic disciplines, but also between them. The h-index, a popular research metric, has been formally used as one such method of valuation. In this article, we use the case of the h-index to examine how the distribution of research metrics reveal within and between discipline inequalities. Using bibliometric data from 1960-2019 on over 50,000 high performing scientists—the top 2% most frequently cited authors—across 174 disciplines, we construct random effects within-between models predicting the h-index. Results suggest significant within-discipline variation in several forms, specifically sole-authorship and female penalties. Results also show that a sole authorship penalty plays a significant role in well-known between-discipline variation. Field-specific models emphasize the “apples-to-oranges,” or incommensurable, property of cross-discipline comparison with significant heterogeneity in sole-authorship and female penalties within fields. In conclusion, we recommend continued caution when using the h-index or similar metrics for valuation purposes and the prioritization of substantive valuations from disciplinary experts.

Who’s quitting academia? Data reveal gender gaps in surprising fields

Even in scientific areas in which women are well represented, they are up to 40% more likely than men to leave research within 20 years.

Revisiting gender bias research in bibliometrics: Standardizing methodological variability using Scholarly Data Analysis (SoDA) Cards

Gender biases in scholarly metrics remain a persistent concern, despite numerous bibliometric studies exploring their presence and absence across productivity, impact, acknowledgment, and self-citations. However, methodological inconsistencies, particularly in author name disambiguation and gender identification, limit the reliability and comparability of these studies, potentially perpetuating misperceptions and hindering effective interventions. A review of 70 relevant publications over the past 12 years reveals a wide range of approaches, from name-based and manual searches to more algorithmic and gold-standard methods, with no clear consensus on best practices. This variability, compounded by challenges such as accurately disambiguating Asian names and managing unassigned gender labels, underscores the urgent need for standardized and robust methodologies. To address this critical gap, we propose the development and implementation of ``Scholarly Data Analysis (SoDA) Cards." These cards will provide a structured framework for documenting and reporting key methodological choices in scholarly data analysis, including author name disambiguation and gender identification procedures. By promoting transparency and reproducibility, SoDA Cards will facilitate more accurate comparisons and aggregations of research findings, ultimately supporting evidence-informed policymaking and enabling the longitudinal tracking of analytical approaches in the study of gender and other social biases in academia.

Editors-in-chief in social sciences: Mapping the institutional, geographical, and gender representation between academic fields

This study systematically maps the network structure of the editors-in-chief in social sciences journals, focusing on their gender representation, geographical distribution, and institutional composition. Drawing upon large-scale data from 3,320 JCR-ranked journals of 57 different fields in the social sciences (4,868 editors-in-chief from 1,485 affiliations of 71 countries), the study aims to illustrate the current connections of editorial leadership in social sciences. Findings reveal that two countries—the U.S. and the U.K.—and their institutions shape almost all fields of the social sciences, with institutions from other geographies, particularly non-English-speaking countries, being substantially underrepresented. However, there is no central institution that dominates across all fields, but within dominant geographies, a reduced number of different affiliations prevail in the most important intellectual terrains. In terms of gender representation, there is a significant imbalance across all dimensions under study. Male editors-in-chief outnumber females across most fields (66.67%), countries (76.60%), and affiliations (63.16%). All in all, by critically mapping the connections of editors-in-chief in social sciences journals, this study seeks to advance our understanding of the current structure of editorial governance and, in turn, stimulate initiatives aimed at fostering a more representative leadership in social science, keeping levels of scientific excellence constant.

Track gender ratios in research to keep countries, institutions and publishers accountable

Nature Index data reveal how countries and fields differ in gender equity in research.

Gender gap in research publishing is improving — slowly

A Nature Index data set shows which countries, institutions and topic areas are making the greatest progress towards gender equity in research.

Gender pay gaps and inequity at science publishers

Dissecting the gender divide: Authorship and acknowledgment in scientific publications

The issue of gender bias in scientific publications has been the subject of ongoing debate. One aspect of this debate concerns whether women receive equal credit for their contributions compared to men. Conventional wisdom suggests that women are more likely to be acknowledged than listed as co-authors, a role that carries greater prestige. Here, we analyze data from hundreds of thousands of scientists across nine disciplines and a broad range of publications. Our results confirm persistent gender disparities: women are more frequently acknowledged than credited as co-authors, especially in roles involving investigation and analysis. 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. These findings suggest that power dynamics and perceived success heavily influence how credit is distributed in scientific publishing. The results underscore the role of status in shaping authorship and call for a more nuanced understanding of how gender, power, and recognition interact. This research offers valuable insights for scientists, editors, and funding agencies committed to advancing equity in science.

Gender gap in citations, h-index, and representation: Examining the highly cited authors across continents and disciplines in Google Scholar

This study investigates gender inequalities in academia by examining differences in representation, citations, and h-index between male and female highly cited researchers across disciplines and geographic regions. Using a unique dataset from Google Scholar, this study analyzes 21,509 highly cited authors across 191 fields and all continents. We examine gender disparities in citations, h-index, and representation while controlling for research productivity and career length to determine if female researchers experience different outcomes compared to their male counterparts. The findings reveal that 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. This study highlights the persistence of gender inequalities in academic representation and long-term impact, as measured by the h-index. The results suggest that while citation rates for female researchers can match or exceed those of male scholars when productivity is controlled for, structural barriers continue to limit women’s long-term recognition in academia. This research contributes to the understanding of gender disparities among top researchers, showing that while citation parity is possible, significant gender gaps remain in overall academic representation and long-term recognition through h-index measures.

Gender disparities among authors of retracted publications in medical journals: A cross-sectional study

Background Gender disparities in scientific authorship are well documented, yet little is known about gender representation among authors of retracted publications. Methods We analyzed 878 retracted publications from 131 high-impact medical journals across nine clinical disciplines (anesthesiology, dermatology, general internal medicine, gynecology/obstetrics, neurology, oncology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and radiology). Gender was inferred using Gender API for all, first, and last authors. Two analytic samples were constructed based on prediction confidence thresholds (≥60% and ≥70%). We examined gender distribution across authorship positions, number of retractions per author, and disciplinary representation. Wilcoxon rank-sum and chi-squared tests were used to assess group differences. Gender proportions were compared with publication benchmarks from 2008–2017, restricting retraction data to the same period for comparability. Results Among 4,136 authors, 3,909 had full first names, and gender could be assigned to 3,865 (98.9%). In the sample with prediction confidence ≥60% (n = 3,743), 863 (23.1%) were identified as women. They accounted for 16.5% (123/747) of first and 12.7% (87/687) of last authors. They had significantly fewer retractions per author and were less likely to have >5 retractions (all authors: 3 women [8.1%] vs 34 men [91.9%], p < 0.001). Across most disciplines, their representation was below publication benchmarks. Dermatology (retractions = 80.0%, publications = 48.9–51.8%) and radiology (retractions = 40.0%, publications = 31.0-36.8%) were exceptions among first authors, while pediatrics (retractions = 50.0%, publications = 37.0%−42.6%) was an exception among last authors, though all based on small numbers. Conclusions Women are markedly underrepresented among authors of retracted publications, particularly in cases involving multiple retractions. Further research is needed to clarify underlying mechanisms.

Any Old Tom, Dick or Harry: The Citation Impact of First Name Genderedness

This paper attempts a first analysis of citation distributions based on the genderedness of authors' first name. Following the extraction of first name and sex data from all human entity triplets contained in Wikidata, a first name genderedness table is first created based on compiled sex frequencies, then merged with bibliometric data from eponymous, US-affiliated authors. Comparisons of various cumulative distributions show that citation concentrations fluctuations are highest at the opposite ends of the genderedness spectrum, as 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.

Don’t assume that women’s low retraction rates reflect male ‘boldness’

Letter to the Editor

Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review

Women are underrepresented in academia, especially in STEMM fields, at top institutions, and in senior positions. This study analyzes millions of biomedical and life science articles, revealing that female-authored articles spend longer under review than comparable male-authored articles, across most fields.