Researchers collaborate with same-gendered colleagues more often than expected across the life sciences

Holman, Luke; Morandin, Claire

doi:10.1101/345975

Cited by 7 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(92 reference statements)

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“…Importantly, gender homophily was only evident among male researchers, whereas female first and last authors were more likely to publish with members of the other gender (males). Several recent studies found similar patterns of gender homophily in other ecology journals (Fox et al 2018), computational biology journals (Bonham and Stefan 2017), and across a wide survey of publications indexed on PubMed in the last decade (Holman and Mirandin 2019). We found no interaction between gender of the first and last author on the number of female co-authors (P = 0.95; Appendix S1: Table S1).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

Effects of Inferred Gender on Patterns of Co‐Authorship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Publications

Frances

Fitzpatrick

Koprivnikar

et al. 2020

Bulletin Ecologic Soc America

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Senior positions in academia such as tenured faculty and editorial positions often exhibit large gender imbalances across a broad range of research disciplines. The forces driving these imbalances have been the subject of extensive speculation and a more modest body of research. Given the central role publications play in determining individual outcomes and progress in academic settings, unequal patterns of authorship across gender could be a potent driver of observed gender imbalance in academia. Here, we investigate patterns of co-authorship across four journals in ecology and evolutionary biology at four time-points spanning four decades. Co-authorship patterns are of interest because collaborations are important in scientific research, affecting individual researcher productivity, and increasingly, funding opportunities. Based on inferred gender from set criteria, we found significant differences between male and female researchers in their tendency to publish with female co-authors. Specifically, compared to women, male researchers in the last author position were more likely to co-author papers with other males. While we did find that the proportion of female coauthors has increased modestly over the last thirty years, this is strongly correlated with an increase in the average number of authors per paper over time. Additionally, the proportion of female coauthors on papers remains well below the proportion of PhDs awarded to females in biology.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

Effects of Inferred Gender on Patterns of Co‐Authorship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Publications

Frances

Fitzpatrick

Koprivnikar

et al. 2020

Bulletin Ecologic Soc America

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“…There are several speculated reasons as to why men tend to collaborate with men and women with other women. [23,31] There may be exclusivity amongst established researchers, specifically in male dominated specialties, resulting in male homophily. [31] Women may be more likely to promote other women in order to close the gender gap and, as a result, work together.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[23,31] There may be exclusivity amongst established researchers, specifically in male dominated specialties, resulting in male homophily. [31] Women may be more likely to promote other women in order to close the gender gap and, as a result, work together. [31] Gender homophily could also merely be a result of working more closely with those that are like-minded or have a similar work ethic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Woman Authorship in Pre-print Versus Peer-Reviewed Oral Health-Related Publications: A Two-Year Observational Study

Rajendran

Ioannidou

2021

Preprint

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Objectives: Women in oral health science face similar societal issues and challenges as those in other STEMM careers, and gender disparities continue to exist as evidenced by fewer women represented as first and last authors in scientific publications. Pre-prints may serve as a conduit to immediately disseminating one's work, bypassing the arduous peer review process and its associated inherent biases. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to 1) compare the gender of first and last authors in pre-print versus peer reviewed publications, 2) examine the composition of first and last author pairs as stratified by publication type, and 3) examine the correlation between woman authorship and institutional geographic location and publication metrics stratified by publication type. Methods: The keyword "oral health" was used to search for publications in BioRxiv and Pubmed in the years 2018 and 2019. Gender of first and last authors were determined, and its frequency was considered as the primary outcome. Additionally, the geographic location of the author's associated institution and publication metrics measured by Altmetrics score were extracted. Data was descriptively summarized by frequencies and percentages. Chi-square analysis was conducted for categorical variables which included the relationship between gender and publication type as well as gender and region of author's associated institution. Binomial regression analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between gender and Altmetrics. Results: Woman first authors comprised 40.3% of pre-prints and 64.5% of peer reviewed publications (p<0.05). Woman last authors comprised 31.3% of pre-prints and 61.5% of peer reviewed publications (p<0.05). When analyzing the relationships between first and last author, the Man-Man pairing represented 47.7% of the pre-print publications and the Woman-Woman pairing comprised a majority of the of the peer review publications at 47.5%. All results were statistically significant with a p-value <0.05. No significant correlation was found between region of institution or Altmetrics and gender of first or last authors (p>0.05). Conclusion: For the first time in oral health science, it was found that women show higher representation as first and last author positions in peer reviewed publications versus pre-prints.

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“…Similarly, having an inner social circle composed predominantly of women predicts women’s leadership success 105 . Alternatively, since researchers are more likely to publish with colleagues of the same gender than is expected by chance 99,106 , gender preferences in co-authors may further reinforce gender differences in career progression and length. This effect could be further compounded since high-performing (and therefore ideal collaborator 102,107 ) male academics employ relatively fewer women, and thus provide fewer associated collaboration opportunities 24 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regardless of discipline, finding and establishing new collaborations is not always straightforward, and working more collaboratively may require overcoming barriers, such as having a small peer network, or lacking access to funding 113 . This may be a particular challenge for female researchers, who represent less of the workforce as seniority increases 9 , and especially since male researchers typically prefer to collaborate with other men 99,106 . Researchers may also have concerns over the risk to reward ratio of forming new collaborations 113 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociality enhances survival in science, especially for female researchers

Wal

Thorogood

Horrocks³

2020

Preprint

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Intense competition for limited opportunities means the career path of a scientist is a challenging one, and female scientists in particular are less likely to survive in academia. Collaboration is a key factor in scientific advances, and in social species enhanced sociality improves fitness and longevity. Yet whether sociality influences career progression and survival in science, and how this might differ between genders, is largely unknown. We built authorship social networks from publication records to test how sociality predicts career progression and survival in a cohort of biologists contributing to three international conferences in the 1990s. We show that sociality has the strongest effect for female researchers but, regardless of gender, publishing with many diverse co-authors significantly reduces time to become a principal investigator and increases career duration. Publishing repeatedly with co-authors also enhances career progression in both genders, but reduces career length for men. These findings demonstrate that the value of collaboration extends beyond scientific advances, and can directly benefit the career progression and longevity of research scientists themselves. Efforts to encourage researchers at all levels to invest in collaborations, particularly with female researchers, will help to close the gender gap in science and academia.

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Researchers collaborate with same-gendered colleagues more often than expected across the life sciences

Cited by 7 publications

References 66 publications

Effects of Inferred Gender on Patterns of Co‐Authorship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Publications

Effects of Inferred Gender on Patterns of Co‐Authorship in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Publications

Woman Authorship in Pre-print Versus Peer-Reviewed Oral Health-Related Publications: A Two-Year Observational Study

Sociality enhances survival in science, especially for female researchers

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