Trends in Female Authorship in Cornea From 2007 to 2019

Abstract

Purpose: To identify female authorship trends in first author and last author positions in Cornea from 2007 to 2019.

Methods: First and last authors of all Clinical Science and Basic Investigation publications in Cornea over 13 years were sorted by sex. Identification of sex was based on the author's institutional profile or a Google-based name identifier in cases of equivocal names. The proportion of female board-certified ophthalmologists between 2007 and 2019 was collected from the American Board of Ophthalmology total roster of certified diplomats.

Results: First and last author sexes were collected from 2313 publications (1837 Clinical Science and 476 Basic Investigation). Between 2007 and 2019, the percentage of female first authors increased from 30.5% to 41.5%, although this change was not significant (P = 0.240). Female last author percentage increased significantly from 14.9% to 26.6% (P = 0.016). The percentage of female American Board of Ophthalmology-certified diplomats also increased significantly from 17.4% to 24.5% (P < 0.001). Similarly, when comparing 2007 and 2008 with 2018 and 2019, we noted a significant increase in the proportion of women in the last author (P < 0.001) but not in the first author (P = 0.208) position. We also identified a significantly higher proportion of female first authors than that of female board-certified ophthalmologists (P < 0.001). Finally, there was a strong association between first author sex and last author sex (P < 0.001) across manuscripts.

Conclusions: The proportion of women in last author positions increased over 13 years among manuscripts in Cornea. Despite these advances in academic female representation within the cornea subspecialty, a gender gap in authorship persists.