Is there a ‘gender gap’ in authorship of the main Brazilian psychiatric journals at the beginning of the 21st century?

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the existence of a ''gender gap'' in the authorship of the four most important peer-reviewed psychiatric journals in Brazil and to quantify its magnitude. In addition, we examined the patterns of change in this gap during the period extending from 2001 to 2008 and variations according to the total number of authors, the type of article (original vs. non-original studies), and the journals themselves. A total of 1,036 articles were analyzed. We found that the proportion of female overall participation has increased from 2001 to 2008. Nevertheless, the incremental rate was accounted mostly by the growth of the participation in non-original articles. While the average annual increment for original articles was virtually null (.01%), for the nonoriginal articles the corresponding figure was 3.7%. We also found that the chance of a woman being first author was about three times greater in original papers as compared to non-original ones at the beginning of the study period; this differential declined by 11% per year during this period. A different pattern emerged from the analysis of female last authorship. Year of publication and type of study were still associated with the chance of a woman being the last author but without interaction. Further, the journals themselves were found to be related with female last authorship: the chance of a woman being the last author in an article published in the Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria was significantly smaller than in the other three journals. Our findings indicate clearly that some progress in being achieved in eliminating the gender gap also in field of Psychiatry and highlight the need for further research in this area.

Perfil e análise da produção científica dos pesquisadores brasileiros em Neurociência Clínica

“…However, only one female researcher was identified at the highest levels (1A/1B) compared with 14 male researchers. Recently, Mendlowicz et al 15 showed that, in 2001, women represented only 40% of the authors of the four major Brazilian journals in the field of Psychiatry. However, due to continued growth in the proportion of female authorship of review articles, a near gender parity was achieved 25 .…”

“…In this analysis, the area of Neurosciences stood out in terms of the production of scientific papers indexed in databases such as the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and Scopus 6 . Several studies have assessed the scientific production of Neurosciences in Brazil and Latin America [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . However, specific data about the main Brazilian researchers in this area of knowledge are still relatively scarce 16 .…”

DESIDOC Journal of Library and Information Technology: A Gender Perspective

“…According to more recent research results analysed women's scientific production has increased in quantitative terms in some disciplines though differences exists in overall representation of women in academia [24][25] . Although there is growing participation of women in research and academic activities in the western world, but equal status across gender is still a distant dream 26 .…”

Métricas da participação feminina na ciência e tecnologia no contexto dos INCTs │ Metrics for women’s participation in science and technology in the context of INCTs

“…Outro exemplo é o estudo conduzido por Mendlowicz et al (2011) que objetivou investigar a existência de diferença de gênero na autoria de artigos publicados em quatro periódicos brasileiros de Psiquiatria, no período entre 2001 e 2008. Os achados da pesquisa apontaram, entre outros, que a participação feminina em artigos não-originais é maior, que a chance de uma mulher ser a primeira autora em um artigo original aumentou em relação ao período inicial do estudo e que entre os quatro periódicos, na Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria é menor a chance de a mulher ser o último autor.…”