Work

The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: Gender disparities appear to be decreasing in academia according to a number of metrics, such as grant funding, hiring, acceptance at scholarly journals, and productivity, and it might be tempting to think that gender inequity will soon be a problem of the past. However, a large-scale analysis based on over eight million papers across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities reveals a number of understated and persistent ways in which gender inequities remain. For instance, even where raw publication counts seem to be equal between genders, close inspection reveals that, in certain fields, men predominate in the prestigious first and last author positions. Moreover, women are significantly underrepresented as authors of single-authored papers. Academics should be aware of the subtle ways that gender disparities can occur in scholarly authorship.

Source: PLoS ONE

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066212

Authors: Jevin D. West, Jennifer Jacquet, Molly M. King, Shelley J. Correll, Carl T. Bergstrom

Institutions: University of Washington, New York University, Stanford University, Santa Fe Institute

Language: English

Topic: scientometrics and bibliometrics research

Subfield: Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,382