Der Gendergap in der medizinischen Spitzenforschung

Zusammenfassung

Hintergrund Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Integration weiblicher Akademiker anhand ihrer Repräsentation in wissenschaftlichen Autorenschaften im Bereich der medizinischen Spitzenforschung für die Jahre 2008 bis September 2017 zu objektivieren.

Methode Insgesamt wurden 133 893 Autorenschaften aus 7 der einflussreichsten medizinischen Fachjournale analysiert. Kernmethodik war die kombinierte Analyse der relativen Häufigkeiten, Odds Ratios und Zitationen weiblicher Autorenschaften. Der Prestige-Index misst die Verteilung prestigeträchtiger Autorenschaften zwischen beiden Geschlechtern.

Ergebnisse 35,0 % aller Autorenschaften und 34,3 % der Erst-, 36,1 % der Co- und 24,2 % der Letzt-Autorenschaften werden von Frauen gehalten. Frauen besitzen bezogen auf Männer eine Odds Ratio von 0,97 (KI: 0,93 – 1,01) für Erst-, 1,36 (KI: 1,32 – 1,40) für Co- und 0,57 (KI: 0,54 – 0,60) für Letzt-Autorenschaften. Der Anteil weiblicher Autorenschaften besitzt eine durchschnittliche jährliche Wachstumsrate von 1,3 % (total) und 0,5 % für Erst-, 1,2 % für Co- und 0,8 % für Letzt-Autorenschaften. Frauen sind auf prestigeträchtigen Autorenschaften unterrepräsentiert (Prestige Index = –0,38). Die weibliche Unterrepräsentation akzentuiert in zitationsstarken Artikeln mit hochkompetitiven Autorenschaften (Artikel mit vielen Autoren, Artikel aus hochrenommierten Fachjournalen). Multi-Autoren-Artikel mit männlichen Erst- und Letztautoren werden signifikant häufiger zitiert als jene mit weiblichen Schlüsselautoren. Die geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiede in den Zitationsraten sind umso größer, je mehr Autoren an einem Artikel beteiligt sind. Frauen publizieren weniger als Männer (39,6 % weibliche Autoren halten 35,0 % der Autorenschaften) und sind ab einem Produktivitätsniveau von mehr als einem Artikel pro Autor relativ unterrepräsentiert. Es finden sich deutliche länderspezifische Unterschiede.

Schlussfolgerung Die medizinische Spitzenforschung ist charakterisiert durch wenige, als Letzt-Autor agierende Gruppenleiterinnen und viele weibliche Co- und Erst-Autoren am Anfang ihrer Karriere. Es ist wahrscheinlich, dass diese geschlechtsspezifische Karriere-Dichotomie in der nächsten Dekade persistiert.

Abstract

Objective The study aims to elucidate the state of gender equality in high-impact medical research, analyzing the representation of female authorships from January, 2008 to September, 2017.

Methods 133 893 male and female authorships from seven high-impact medical journals were analyzed. The key methodology was the combined analysis of the relative frequency, odds ratio and citations of female authorships. The Prestige Index measures the distribution of prestigious authorships between the two genders.

Results 35.0 % of all authorships and 34.3 % of the first, 36.1 % of the co- and 24.2 % of the last authorships were held by women. Female authors have an odds ratio of 0.97 (KI: 0.93 – 1.01) for first, 1.36 (KI: 1.32 – 1.40) for co- und 0.57 (KI: 0.54 – 0.60) for last authorships compared to male authors. The proportion of female authorships exhibits an annual growth of 1.3 % overall, with 0.5 % for first, 1.2 % for co-, and 0.8 % for last authorships. Women are underrepresented at prestigious authorship compared to men (Prestige Index = –0.38). The underrepresentation accentuates in highly competitive articles attracting the highest citation rates, namely, articles with many authors and articles that were published in highest-impact journals. Multi-author articles with male key authors are more frequently cited than articles with female key authors. The gender-specific differences in citation rates increase the more authors contribute to an article. Women publish fewer articles compared to men (39.6 % female authors are responsible for 35.0 % of the authorships) and are underrepresented at productivity levels of more than 1 article per author. Distinct differences at the country level were revealed.

Conclusion High impact medical research is characterized by few female group leaders as last authors and many female researchers being first or co-authors early in their career. It is very likely that this gender-specific career dichotomy will persistent in the next decade.

Schlüsselwörter

Geschlecht - Prestige - Zitation - Odds Ratio

Key words

gender - prestige - citation - odds ratio

• Literatur

• 1 Amering M, Schrank B, Sibitz I. The gender gap in high-impact psychiatry journals. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2011; 86: 946-952 . doi:10.1097/ACM.0b013e3182222887
• 2 Butcher J. Women in neurology. The Lancet Neurology 2007; 6: 762 . doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(07)70210-7
• 3 Filardo G, da Graca B, Sass DM. et al. Trends and comparison of female first authorship in high impact medical journals: observational study (1994-2014). BMJ 2016; 352: i847 . doi:10.1136/bmj.i847
• 4 Liang T, Zhang C, Khara RM. et al. Assessing the Gap in Female Authorship in Radiology: Trends Over the Past Two Decades. Journal of the American College of Radiology : JACR 2015; 12: 735-741 . doi:10.1016/j.jacr.2015.03.008
• 5 Long MT, Leszczynski A, Thompson KD. et al. Female authorship in major academic gastroenterology journals: a look over 20 years. Gastrointestinal endoscopy 2015; 81: 1440-1447.e1443 . doi:10.1016/j.gie.2015.01.032
• 6 Mueller CM, Gaudilliere DK, Kin C. et al. Gender disparities in scholarly productivity of US academic surgeons. Journal of Surgical Research 2016; 203: 28-33 . doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2016.03.060
• 7 Reed DA, Enders F, Lindor R. et al. Gender differences in academic productivity and leadership appointments of physicians throughout academic careers. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2011; 86: 43-47 . doi:10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181ff9ff2
• 8 Rochon PA, Davidoff F, Levinson W. Women in Academic Medicine Leadership: Has Anything Changed in 25 Years?. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges 2016; 91: 1053-1056 . doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000001281
• 9 Bendels MHK. Gendermetrics – ein szientometrischer Ansatz zur Analyse der Geschlechterdisparität in der Wissenschaft [Habilitationsschrift]. Frankfurt am Main: Goethe Universität. to appear in: 2018
• 10 Dance A. Authorship: Who’s on first?. Nature 2012; 489: 591-593
• 11 Tscharntke T, Hochberg ME, Rand TA. et al. Author sequence and credit for contributions in multiauthored publications. PLoS Biol 2007; 5: e18 . doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050018
• 12 Jagsi R, Guancial EA, Worobey CC. et al. The “gender gap” in authorship of academic medical literature--a 35-year perspective. The New England journal of medicine 2006; 355: 281-287 . doi:10.1056/NEJMsa053910
• 13 Bendels MHK, Bauer J, Schoffel N. et al. The gender gap in schizophrenia research. Schizophrenia research 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2017.06.019.
• 14 Gendermetrics of cancer research: results from a global analysis on lung cancer.. Oncotarget 2017; 8: 101911-101921 . doi:10.18632/oncotarget.22089
• 15 Bendels MHK, Muller R, Brueggmann D. et al. Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS one 2018; 13: e0189136. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
• 16 Bendels MHK, Wanke E, Schöffel N. et al. Gender equality in academic research on epilepsy – a study on scientific authorships. Epilepsia 2017; DOI: 10.1111/epi.13873.
• 17 Bendels MHK, Brüggmann D, Schöffel N. et al. Gendermetrics.NET: a novel software for analyzing the gender representation in scientific authoring. J Occup Med Toxicol 2016; 11: 43
• 18 Lariviere V, Ni C, Gingras Y. et al. Bibliometrics: global gender disparities in science. Nature 2013; 504: 211-213
• 19 West M, Curtis J. AAUP faculty gender equity indicators 2006. In: American Association of University Professors. 2006
• 20 Ramsden P. Describing and explaining research productivity. Higher Education 1994; 28: 207-226 . doi:10.1007/bf01383729
• 21 van den Besselaar P, Sandstrom U. Gender differences in research performance and its impact on careers: a longitudinal case study. Scientometrics 2016; 106: 143-162 . doi:10.1007/s11192-015-1775-3
• 22 West JD, Jacquet J, King MM. et al. The role of gender in scholarly authorship. PloS one 2013; 8: e66212 . doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066212
• 23 Campbell A. Female competition: causes, constraints, content, and contexts. Journal of sex research 2004; 41: 16-26 . doi:10.1080/00224490409552210
• 24 Niederle M, Vesterlund L. Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2007; 122: 1067-1101 . doi:10.1162/qjec.122.3.1067
• 25 Gino F, Wilmuth CA, Brooks AW. Compared to men, women view professional advancement as equally attainable, but less desirable. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2015; 112: 12354-12359 . doi:10.1073/pnas.1502567112
• 26 Figg WD, Dunn L, Liewehr DJ. et al. Scientific collaboration results in higher citation rates of published articles. Pharmacotherapy 2006; 26: 759-767 . doi:10.1592/phco.26.6.759
• 27 Schisterman EF, Swanson CW, Lu YL. et al. The changing face of epidemiology: gender disparities in citations?. Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass) 2016; 28 (02) 159-168
• 28 Symonds MR, Gemmell NJ, Braisher TL. et al. Gender differences in publication output: towards an unbiased metric of research performance. PloS one 2006; 1: e127 . doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000127
• 29 Cikara M, Rudman L, Fiske S. Dearth by a Thousand Cuts? Accounting for Gender Differences in Top-Ranked Publication Rates in Social Psychology. The Journal of social issues 2012; 68: 263-285 . doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2012.01748.x
• 30 Chawla DS. Men cite themselves more than women do. Nature 2016; 535: 212 . doi:10.1038/nature.2016.20176
• 31 Helitzer DL, Newbill SL, Cardinali G. et al. Changing the Culture of Academic Medicine: Critical Mass or Critical Actors?. Journal of women‘s health (2002) 2017; DOI: 10.1089/jwh.2016.6019.
• 32 Kaufman RR, Chevan J. The gender gap in peer-reviewed publications by physical therapy faculty members: a productivity puzzle. Physical therapy 2011; 91: 122-131 . doi:10.2522/ptj.20100106