SynthesisPLoS biology2018
The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?
Synthesis in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 201 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
201 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pre- and post-COVID-19 gender trends in authorship for paediatric radiology articles worldwide: a systematic review.Pediatric radiology · 2024Pooled it
- "Why Can't I Become a Manager?"-A Systematic Review of Gender Stereotypes and Organizational Discrimination.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Underrepresentation of women in computer systems research.PloS one · 2022Trial
- Commentary: Making Patient Data Count-Opportunities and Challenges for Open Science in Clinical Psychology.Journal of clinical psychology · 2026Article
- Quantifying institutional gender inequality in contemporary visual art.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Generosity as a Scientific Method: Building Knowledge and Community in a Competitive World.Interactive journal of medical research · 2026Article
- Gender gap in returns to publications.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Large Language Models in Ophthalmology: A Bibliographic Analysis.Turkish journal of ophthalmology · 2026Article
- The Gender and Geographic Location of Authors Impact Citation Rates of GBE Papers.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Researcher population pyramids: Tracking demographic and gender trajectories across countries.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Where the pipeline leaks and delays: gendered academic dynamics in anatomy in Türkiye.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Empowering resilience: celebrating and accelerating women's transformative contributions to plant abiotic stress research (2010-2025).Frontiers in plant science · 2026Review
- Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Gendered male and high-income country authors dominate publication at a One Health research organization.PloS one · 2026Article
- Most researchers would receive more recognition if assessed by article-level metrics than by journal-level metrics.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Examining gender and ethnic disparities in scientific authorship to promote a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion at a university school of public health.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Women in science: bridging gaps in basic sciences.Trends in molecular medicine · 2025Article
- Female first and senior authorship in high-impact critical care journals 2005-2024.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
- Factors associated with women authorship over 25 years in high-impact critical care randomized controlled trials: the pipeline is still leaking.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
141 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Women comprise a minority of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) workforce. Quantifying the gender gap may identify fields that will not reach parity without intervention, reveal underappreciated biases, and inform benchmarks for gender balance among conference speakers, editors, and hiring committees. Using the PubMed and arXiv databases, we estimated the gender of 36 million authors from >100 countries publishing in >6000 journals, covering most STEMM disciplines over the last 15 years, and made a web app allowing easy access to the data (https://lukeholman.github.io/genderGap/). Despite recent progress, the gender gap appears likely to persist for generations, particularly in surgery, computer science, physics, and maths. The gap is especially large in authorship positions associated with seniority, and prestigious journals have fewer women authors. Additionally, we estimate that men are invited by journals to submit papers at approximately double the rate of women. Wealthy countries, notably Japan, Germany, and Switzerland, had fewer women authors than poorer ones. We conclude that the STEMM gender gap will not close without further reforms in education, mentoring, and academic publishing.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.