ArticleJournal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA2021
Performance of gender detection tools: a comparative study of name-to-gender inference services.
Article in Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 65 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
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- Mapping autism's research landscape: trends in autism screening and its alignment with sustainable development goals.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Variations in Author Gender in Obstetrics Disease Prevalence Literature: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Women in Japanese cardiovascular surgery: 21-year trends (2004-2025), current status and future perspectives.General thoracic and cardiovascular surgery · 2026Article
- Performance of name-to-gender inference: comparison between Gender API, NamSor, and genderize.io in a multicultural global dataset.Internal and emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Locally-affiliated authorship in global eye health research conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2003 and 2022.Eye (London, England) · 2026Article
- Breaking the Glass Ceiling? Gender Dynamics in Turkish Dental Faculty Leadership.European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe · 2026Article
- 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
- Trends in female authorship of spine literature from 2002 to 2022.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026Article
- National-, Institutional-, and Individual-Level Determinants of Neurology and Neurosurgery Research Excellence: An Analysis of Stanford-Elsevier Lists of the Top 2% Scholars Worldwide (2017-2023).Neuroepidemiology · 2026Review
- Collaborative relationships, disciplinary and global culture, social identity and scientific status shape how scholars cite prior work.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Attribution of credit in acknowledgements: The case of systematic reviews in medicine.PloS one · 2026Article
- Gender Differences in National Institutes of Health Funding for Family Medicine Faculty.Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM · 2026Article
- Representation and career trajectories of female principal investigators in clinical trials, 2010-2023.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- Global evolution of female authorships in anesthesiology articles: an affiliation-based, longitudinal, scientometric analysis.BMC anesthesiology · 2025Article
- Female first and senior authorship in high-impact critical care journals 2005-2024.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
- A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications on the Prevalence of Chronic Pain in Children and Adolescents From 2009 to 2023.Paediatric & neonatal pain · 2025Review
- Global Trends and Cross-Country Differences in Authorship by Women in Academic Anaesthesiology Since 1996: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the performance of gender detection tools that allow the uploading of files (e.g., Excel or CSV files) containing first names, are usable by researchers without advanced computer skills, and are at least partially free of charge.
methodsThe study was conducted using four physician datasets (total number of physicians: 6,131; 50.3% female) from Switzerland, a multilingual country. Four gender detection tools met the inclusion criteria: three partially free (Gender API, NamSor, and genderize.io) and one completely free (Wiki-Gendersort). For each tool, we recorded the number of correct classifications (i.e., correct gender assigned to a name), misclassifications (i.e., wrong gender assigned to a name), and nonclassifications (i.e., no gender assigned). We computed three metrics: the proportion of misclassifications excluding nonclassifications (errorCodedWithoutNA), the proportion of nonclassifications (naCoded), and the proportion of misclassifications and nonclassifications (errorCoded).
resultsThe proportion of misclassifications was low for all four gender detection tools (errorCodedWithoutNA between 1.5 and 2.2%). By contrast, the proportion of unrecognized names (naCoded) varied: 0% for NamSor, 0.3% for Gender API, 4.5% for Wiki-Gendersort, and 16.4% for genderize.io. Using errorCoded, which penalizes both types of error equally, we obtained the following results: Gender API 1.8%, NamSor 2.0%, Wiki-Gendersort 6.6%, and genderize.io 17.7%.
conclusionsGender API and NamSor were the most accurate tools. Genderize.io led to a high number of nonclassifications. Wiki-Gendersort may be a good compromise for researchers wishing to use a completely free tool. Other studies would be useful to evaluate the performance of these tools in other populations (e.g., Asian).
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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.