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The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship

TitleThe Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsWest JD, Jacquet J, King MM, Correll SJ, Bergstrom CT
Secondary AuthorsHadany L
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume8
Issue7
Paginatione66212
Date Published10/2014
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.

URLhttp://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066212
DOI10.1371/journal.pone.0066212
Short TitlePLoS ONE