Gendered knowledge in fields and academic careers

A persistent gender pay gap among faculty in a public university system

Despite movements towards gender parity within academia, women faculty continue to be paid less than men. While previous research has explained the gap using academic rank/seniority and productivity, existing findings are limited by either their examination of base pay or reliance on self-reported data. Here we extend the analysis beyond base pay, link faculty salary records of one public university system in the U.S. to the OpenAlex bibliometric database, and separately analyze the gender pay gap in the base (grade) and other pay (off-grade). Using stepwise regression models, we find that faculty rank accounts for a significant gap in the base pay while performance-based variables such as H-index or specialization do not play a crucial role. For other pay, no variables stand out in explaining the substantial pay gap between women and men faculty. Our results suggest that a primary source of the remaining gender pay gap is the off-grade pay. Different policy approaches are required to reduce the gender pay gap depending on the specific type of salary being targeted.

Female-dominated disciplines have lower evaluated research quality and funding success rates, for men and women

We use data from 30 countries and find that the more women in a discipline, the lower quality the research in that discipline is evaluated to be and the lower the funding success rate is. This affects men and women, and is robust to age, number of research outputs, and bibliometric measures where such data are available. Our work builds on others' findings that women's work is valued less, regardless of who performs that work.

Distribution of Female and Male First and Last Authorship across Drug Delivery Related Journals with Respect to Year and Journal Impact Factor

First and last authorship are important metrics of productivity and scholarly success for trainees and professors. For 11 drug delivery-related journals in 2021, the percentage of female first (39.5%) and last (25.7%) authorship was reported. A strong negative correlation, with female first (rp = -0.73) and female last authorship (rp = -0.66), was observed with respect to journal impact factor. In contrast, there was a strong positive correlation with male first and last authorship (rp = 0.71). Papers were ∼1.5 times more likely to have a male first author, and ∼3 times more likely to have a male last author, than females. A female was 22% more likely to have first authorship if the last author was female, although there is an ∼1% increase per year in female authorship with male last authorship, which equates to equality in first authorship by 2044. Considering that drug delivery is composed of engineering, chemistry, and pharmaceutical science disciplines, the observed 25.7% female last authorship does not represent the approximately 35.5% to 50% of professors that are female in these disciplines, internationally. Overall, female authorship in drug delivery-related journals should improve to better represent the work of female senior authors.

Gender bias in special issues: evidence from a bibliometric analysis

Even though the majority of psychologists are women, they are outnumbered by men in senior academic ranks. One reason for this representation bias in academia is that men favor other men in decision-making, especially when the stakes are high. We tested the possibility of such bias in a bibliometric analysis, in which we coded editors' and authors' gender in regular and special issues, the latter considered of higher scientific prominence. We examined all special issues from five prominent scientific outlets in the fields of personality and social psychology published in the twenty-first century. Altogether, we analyzed 1911 articles nested in 93 sets comprising a special issue and a neighboring regular issue treated as a control condition. For articles published in special (but not regular) issues, when there were more men editors, more men first-authored and co-authored the work. This pattern suggests how gender bias can be perpetuated within academia and calls for revising the editorial policies of leading psychology journals.

Prospective analyses of sex/gender-related publication decisions in general medical journals: editorial rejection of population-based women's reproductive physiology

OBJECTIVE

To assess whether editorial desk rejection at general medical journals (without peer review) of two clinical research manuscripts may relate to author gender or women's physiology topics. Given evidence for bias related to women in science and medicine, and editorial board attitudes, our hypothesis was that submissions by women authors, on women's reproductive, non-disease topics received differential editorial assessment.

DESIGN

A prospective investigation of publications, author gender and topics in general medical journals in two issues following the editorial rejections of two clinical research manuscripts by five major English-language general medical journals. The rejected manuscripts (subsequently published in lower impact journals) described research funded by national granting bodies, in population-based samples, authored by well-published women scientists at accredited institutions and describing innovative women's reproductive physiology results.

SETTING

Tertiary academic medical centre.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

All clinical research published in the two issues following rejection date by each of the five major general medical journals were examined for first/senior author gender. The publication topic was assessed for its gendered population relevance, whether disease or physiology focused, and its funding. Rejection letters assessed editor gender and status.

RESULTS

Women were underrepresented as original research authors; men were 84% of senior and 69% of first authors. There were no, non-disease focused publications relating to women's health, although most topics were relevant to both genders. The majority (80%) of rejection letters appeared to be written by junior-ranked women editors.

CONCLUSION

Sex/gender accountability is necessary for clinical research-based editorial decisions by major general medical journals. Suggestions to improve gender equity in general medical journal publication: (1) an editorial board sex/gender champion with power to advocate for manuscripts that are well-performed research of relevance to women's health/physiology; (2) an editorial rejection adjudication committee to review author challenges; and (3) gender parity in double-blind peer review.