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Women have been consistently underrepresented on editorial boards across disciplines, and they have been found to be less likely to have their work published in their own journals
To determine the representation of women as editors of scientific journals — where key players in the scientific community have the final say on which papers are published — a team led by researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) has completed the largest effort to date Research in Systemic Gender Inequality has been on the editorial board for the past five years. As science editors shape the content of scholarly journals and set standards for their fields, gender differences affect women’s opportunities to publish in these journals, gain research recognition and advance their careers.
NYUAD researchers and their colleagues studied the gender composition of editorial boards across 15 disciplines and the rates at which editors publish their own research in the journals they oversee. They found that women are consistently underrepresented on editorial boards across disciplines, and that editors can publish up to 70 percent of papers in journals they edit while continuing to serve as editors. However, research has found that women are less likely to have their work published in their own journals.
In a paper titled “Gender Inequality and Self-Publishing Common Among Academic Editors,” published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, NYUAD researchers used an algorithmic tool to infer Gender of 81,000 editors across disciplines. They found that only 26% of the authors in the dataset were women, and even fewer were editors (14%) or editor-in-chief (8%).
In addition to serving as the gatekeepers of science, editors actively seek publication opportunities. The vast majority of editors are research-active academics who perform editorial duties in addition to their research activities. Analyzing the publication records of 20,000 editors, the researchers found that 12 percent of editors published at least one-fifth of their papers in the journals they edited, while 6 percent published at least one-third.
Editor-in-Chiefs tended to self-publish at a higher rate; 19% were found to self-publish at least one-fifth of their papers, and 11% self-published one-third of their papers. Finally, men were more likely to publish in journals shortly after becoming journal editors than women.
While gender differences are often measured in terms of citation counts, number of papers, and career length, this study suggests that, at least for editors in chief, gender differences are larger than those numbers predict. Editors are highly influential and can choose to foster a more inclusive scientific community by transparently selecting papers, and can encourage more inclusive editorial boards by recruiting board members from underrepresented groups. Therefore, diversity and representation among editors is critical.
“Editors of scientific journals wield enormous power in their fields, directly influencing which research – and which researchers – are promoted. Unfortunately, not all scientists have equal access to these positions. Our research shows , despite efforts to increase the representation of women in all aspects of the scientific workforce, including editorial leadership positions at journals, it is clear that women remain significantly underrepresented in positions of power,” said Talal Rawang, associate professor of computer science.
Bedoor AlShebli, assistant professor of computational social science, added: “This study also shows that systems of non-elite factors prevail in the selection of editor-in-chiefs that disfavor women. Our findings are consistent with past research showing that women are There are additional obstacles for elite scientists in their respective disciplines.
Future research will be necessary to further pinpoint the underlying mechanisms underlying these findings, with the goal of contributing to a fairer, more transparent and inclusive science editing culture. “
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