Gender of authors and editors in top-ranked infectious diseases journals: a longitudinal trend analysis

Objectives
Gender disparity among authors of scientific articles, but also among editors in scientific journals, is still highly prevalent, despite multiple initiatives. Long-term data to assess changes over the years are largely lacking.

Methods
We performed gender prediction based on the names of first and last authors of articles published between 2012 and 2021 in five selected top-ranked infectious diseases journals. In addition, we predicted the gender of all editors and editors-in-chief (EiCs) of the same journals.

Results
Overall, 5371 of 12 055 (44.6%) of first authors were women, and 6684 of 12 055 (55.4%) were men. Among the last authors, we identified 3664 of 12 443 (29.4%) women and 8779 of 12 443 (70.6%) men. We analysed a total of 653 editors, 162 of whom (24.8%) were women and 491 (75.2%) men. The proportion of women editors was significantly higher during journal-years under a woman EiC compared with those under a man EiC (40.0% vs. 23.0%; p 0.0018; odds ratio [OR], 2.23 [95% CI, 1.32–3.73]), whereas there were no differences regarding the proportion of women first authors (42.9% vs. 44.6%; p 0.40; OR, 0.93 [ 95% CI, 0.79–1.10]) and last authors (27.8% vs. 29.5%; p 0.36; OR, 0.92 [95% CI, 0.77–1.10]). Trend analysis yielded an increase of both women first and last authors, projecting a gender balance to be reached in 2028 for first authors and in 2043 for last authors. The proportion of women editors was projected to remain at a low level.

Conclusions
Despite the favourable trend for women’s first authorship, there is still a need for improvement for women’s last authorship and women’s representation among editors. An increase in women EiCs may help to facilitate a higher representation of women among editors.