Dissecting the gender divide: Authorship and acknowledgment in scientific publications

TL;DR

This study analyzes gender disparities in scientific publishing, revealing women are more often acknowledged than credited as authors, with power dynamics influencing recognition and authorship roles across disciplines.

Contribution

It provides a large-scale empirical analysis of gender-based authorship and acknowledgment patterns, highlighting the influence of status and disciplinary factors.

Findings

Women more frequently acknowledged than credited as authors.

Highly cited scholars are more likely to be listed as authors regardless of gender.

Highly cited women are more likely to be co-authors than men in collaboration pairs.

Abstract

The issue of gender bias in scientific publications has been a topic of ongoing debate. One aspect of this debate concerns whether women receive equal credit for their contributions compared to men. Conventional wisdom suggests that women are more likely to be acknowledged than listed as co-authors. In this study, we analyze data from over 20,000 authors and 60,000 acknowledged individuals across nine disciplines in open-access journals. Our results confirm persistent gender disparities: women are more frequently acknowledged than credited as co-authors, especially in roles involving investigation and analysis. To account for status and disciplinary effects, we examined collaboration pair composed of highly cited and less-cited scholars. In collaborations, highly cited scholars are more likely to be listed as an author regardless of gender. Notably, highly cited women in such pairs are even more likely to be co-authors than their men counterparts. Our findings suggest that power dynamics and perceived success heavily influence the distribution of credit in scientific publishing. These results underscore the role of status dynamics in shaping authorship and call for a more nuanced understanding of how gender, power, and recognition interact in scientific publishing. Our findings offer valuable insights for scholars, editors, and funding committed to advancing equity in science.