Peer review and gender bias: A study on 145 scholarly journals

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.

Evaluation of accepted and rejected submissions in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis: Gender and experience

“…Given that women‐led articles comprise the majority of total submissions, all other factors being equal, they ought to also comprise the majority of accepted and rejected submissions—which is currently the case. Our findings are also concordant with similar recent analyses outside of behavior analysis (i.e., Squazzoni et al, 2021) Indeed, these data ought to be encouraging to the field at large and set the stage for additional analyses of potential bias in other cultural activities, such as faculty appointments and extramural funding. It is important to note again that this does not reflect the broader field, where women are much more likely to engage in behavior‐analytic activity (BACB, 2020), nor does this finding suggest that bias does not impact other aspects of being a woman behavior analyst.…”

Open Editors: A Dataset of Scholarly Journals’ Editorial Board Positions

“…The guesser tool, for instance, usually parses the persons' gender in terms of a binary system, and studies report on inequalities between female and male researchers within the scholarly publication process (e.g. [51]). But this approach excludes a whole range of non-binary sexual identities; also a person whose name is coded as male might not be cis, but trans.…”

Seeking a More Ethical Future for Ethnobiology Publishing: A 40-Year Perspective from Journal of ethnobiology

“…6) than our specific editorial policy. In fact, a recent meta-analysis of the potential of gender-based bias in academic reviews suggests that gender bias in the review process is not the underlying rea-son for gendered differences in publishing (Squazzoni et al 2020).…”