ArticleScience advances2021
Peer review and gender bias: A study on 145 scholarly journals.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 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
58 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Gender Bias in Clinical Trials of Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter 2 Inhibitors for the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review.Journal of diabetes research · 2025Pooled it
- Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration.Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society · 2023Pooled it
- Peer review perpetuates barriers for historically excluded groups.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Trial
- Underrepresentation of women in computer systems research.PloS one · 2022Trial
- Authorship and citation trends in dementia research: A path to equitable career development for scientists.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Gender differences in submission behavior exacerbate publication disparities in elite journals.eLife · 2026Article
- Biomedical and life science articles by female researchers spend longer under review.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Gender and disciplinary differences in grant proposal peer review: Content and sentiment in 39,280 reports.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 climate scientists are connected, productive, and successful but have shorter careers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Characterizing the effect of retractions on publishing careers.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Gender and geographical bias in the editorial decision-making process of biomedical journals: a case-control study.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2025Article
- Do Manuscripts by Female Evolutionary Biologists Spend Longer Under Review?Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The present and future of peer review: Ideas, interventions, and evidence.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Risk of Editorial Bias: A Case Study of Factors Contributing to Review Time in a Leading Journal in Dentistry.Clinical and experimental dental research · 2025Article
- Reputation shortcoming in academic publishing.PloS one · 2025Article
- Black Women in Medical Education Publishing: Bibliometric and Testimonio Accounts Using Intersectionality Methodology.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Machine learning misclassification networks reveal a citation advantage of interdisciplinary publications only in high-impact journals.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Messing with Merton: The intersection between open science practices and Mertonian values.Accountability in research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Scholarly journals are often blamed for a gender gap in publication rates, but it is unclear whether peer review and editorial processes contribute to it. This article examines gender bias in peer review with data for 145 journals in various fields of research, including about 1.7 million authors and 740,000 referees. We reconstructed three possible sources of bias, i.e., the editorial selection of referees, referee recommendations, and editorial decisions, and examined all their possible relationships. Results showed that manuscripts written by women as solo authors or coauthored by women were treated even more favorably by referees and editors. Although there were some differences between fields of research, our findings suggest that peer review and editorial processes do not penalize manuscripts by women. However, increasing gender diversity in editorial teams and referee pools could help journals inform potential authors about their attention to these factors and so stimulate participation by women.
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.