Dissecting the gender divide: Authorship and acknowledgment in scientific publications

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Kusumegi, Keigo, Acuña, Daniel E., Sano, Yukie
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Kusumegi, Keigo
Acuña, Daniel E.
Sano, Yukie
author_facet Kusumegi, Keigo
Acuña, Daniel E.
Sano, Yukie
contents 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.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_15237
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dissecting the gender divide: Authorship and acknowledgment in scientific publications
Kusumegi, Keigo
Acuña, Daniel E.
Sano, Yukie
Digital Libraries
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Physics and Society
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.
title Dissecting the gender divide: Authorship and acknowledgment in scientific publications
topic Digital Libraries
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15237