Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals

Michael H K Bendels, Ruth Müller, Doerthe Brueggmann and David A Groneberg

PLOS ONE, 2018, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Background: The present study aims to elucidate the state of gender equality in high-quality research by analyzing the representation of female authorships in the last decade (from 2008 to 2016). Methods: Based on the Gendermetrics platform, 293,557 research articles from 54 journals listed in the Nature Index were considered covering the categories Life Science, Multidisciplinary, Earth & Environmental and Chemistry. The core method was the combined analysis of the proportion of female authorships and the female-to-male odds ratio for first, co- and last authorships. The distribution of prestigious authorships was measured by the Prestige Index. Results: 29.8% of all authorships and 33.1% of the first, 31.8% of the co- and 18.1% of the last authorships were held by women. The corresponding female-to-male odds ratio is 1.19 (CI: 1.18–1.20) for first, 1.35 (CI: 1.34–1.36) for co- and 0.47 (CI: 0.46–0.48) for last authorships. Women are underrepresented at prestigious authorships compared to men (Prestige Index = -0.42). The underrepresentation accentuates in highly competitive articles attracting the highest citation rates, namely, articles with many authors and articles that were published in highest-impact journals. More specifically, a large negative correlation between the 5-Year-Impact-Factor of a journal and the female representation at prestigious authorships was revealed (r(52) = -.63, P

Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0189136

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189136

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