Background: Women and authors from low- and middle-income countries are notably underrepresented in academia. The intersection of these 2 factors is poorly quantified. We aimed to characterize gender disparities by region through analyzing abstracts presented at the Transplantation Society's congresses.
Methods: Abstracts published in the supplements of the Transplantation journal were included (2016-2022). We used Genderize.io, a predictive algorithm, to classify the first and last authors' gender. Gender disparity was compared by the income level of the author's country of affiliation and the gender inequality index (GII), a composite metric with high scores representing higher levels of gender inequality.
Results: Of the 5005 abstracts analyzed (2259 oral presentations and 2746 posters), the majority emerged from high-income settings (low/lower middle: 7%, upper middle: 22%, and high: 71%). Excluding those for whom gender could not be reliably determined, only 39% of the first authors and 24% of the last authors were women. For 61% of the abstracts, the gender of the first and last authors was concordant, and women's last authorship was associated with a higher likelihood of women's first authorship (adjusted odds ratio: 1.88; 95% confidence interval: 1.62-2.14). Although gender disparity was observed across all income levels and GII scores, the proportion of women first authors declined significantly with lower national wealth (low: 19%, lower-middle: 23%, upper-middle: 42%, and high: 40%, P < 0.001) and higher GII scores (P < 0.001).
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that lack of resources and systemic gender inequities likely limit the progress and career development of women and researchers from low- and middle-income countries in transplantation globally. A deeper understanding of factors contributing to these disparities is needed.
Copyright © 2025 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.