[Gender inequalities in authorship of the main Spanish medical journals in 2017]

Abstract

Introduction: Some studies have shown a lower female participation in scientific publications. The objective of this study is to analyse the gender inequalities in the main Spanish journals of medical publications.

Material and method: Cross-sectional study of the main Spanish medical journals classified by SCImago Journal & Country Ranking (n=24) and their publications (n=3.375), during the year 2017. Women/men ratio in authorship was calculated for all journals and types of papers. Bivariate analyses were developed with the type of article as the dependent variable, and gender, institution, and country of the first and last authors as the independent variables. Logistic regression models were performed to calculate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) of the types of papers according to authorship gender, institution, and country. The statistical program used was R.

Results: The total number of authors was 16,252 (44.2% women, 53.9% men, and 1.9% non-identified gender). Women represented 46% of the first authors and 33.5% of the last ones. Women were the first authors of Editorials less often than men (aOR 0.39; 95% CI 0.30-0.51), but more often in Originals (aOR 1.55; 95% CI 1.33-1.80). Women were the last authors with less frequency in all types of papers, especially in Editorials (aOR 0.50; 95% CI 0.35-0.70). The women/men ratio in authorship was less than 0.80 in 10 of 26 journals analysed (41.7%).

Conclusions: These results show the gender inequalities in the authorship of the main Spanish medical journals in 2017, especially as first authors and Editorials.

Keywords: Authorship; Autoría; Desigualdades de género; Gender bias; Gender inequalities; Health Services Research; Investigación en Servicios de Salud; Medical publications; Publicaciones médicas; Sesgo de género.