Marc J. Lerchenmueller, Olav Sorenson, and Anupam B. Jena

OBJECTIVES

Women remain underrepresented on faculties of medicine and the life sciences more broadly. Whether gender differences in self presentation of clinical research exist and may contribute to this gender gap has been challenging to explore empirically. The objective of this study was to analyze whether men and women differ in how positively they frame their research findings and to analyze whether the positive framing of research is associated with higher downstream citations.

DESIGN

Retrospective observational study.

DATA SOURCES

Titles and abstracts from 101 720 clinical research articles and approximately 6.2 million general life science articles indexed in PubMed and published between 2002 and 2017.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Analysis of article titles and abstracts to determine whether men and women differ in how positively they present their research through use of terms such as “novel” or “excellent.” For a set of 25 positive terms, we estimated the relative probability of positive framing as a function of the gender composition of the first and last authors, adjusting for scientific journal, year of publication, journal impact, and scientific field.

RESULTS

Articles in which both the first and last author were women used at least one of the 25 positive terms in 10.9% of titles or abstracts versus 12.2% for articles involving a male first or last author, corresponding to
a 12.3% relative difference (95% CI 5.7% to 18.9%). Gender differences in positive presentation were greatest in high impact clinical journals (impact
factor >10), in which women were 21.4% less likely to present research positively. Across all clinical journals, positive presentation was associated with 9.4% (6.6% to 12.2%) higher subsequent citations, and in high impact clinical journals 13.0% (9.5% to 16.5%) higher citations. Results were similar when broadened to general life science articles published in journals indexed by PubMed, suggesting that gender differences in positive word use generalize to broader samples.

CONCLUSIONS

Clinical articles involving a male first or last author were more likely to present research findings positively in titles and abstracts compared with articles in which both the first and last author were women, particularly in the highest impact journals. Positive presentation of research findings was associated with higher downstream citations.

British Medical Journal, 367(2019):I6573 (OPEN ACCESS)

Summarized in Harvard Business Review

Summarized in the New York Times

Marc Lerchenmueller and Olav Sorenson

We examined the extent to which and why early career transitions have led to women being underrepresented among faculty in the life sciences. We followed the careers of 6,336 scientists from the post-doctoral fellowship stage to becoming a principal investigator (PI) – a critical transition in the academic life sciences. Using a unique dataset that connects individuals’ National Institutes of Health funding histories to their publication records, we found that a large portion of the overall gender gap in the life sciences emerges from this transition. Women transition to being a PI at a 20% lower rate than men. Differences in “productivity” (publication records) can explain about 60% of this lower rate. The remaining differential in the rates appears to stem from gender differences in the returns to similar publication records, with women systematically receiving less credit for highly-cited research.

Research Policy, 47 (2018): 1007-1017 (OPEN ACCESS)

Carolin Lerchenmüller, Marc Lerchenmueller, and Olav Sorenson

This study examines gender differences in the relative rates of men versus of women being listed in the prestigious first and last author positions on papers, changes in those rates over time, and differences in those rates across groups of articles. The probability of a woman being the first author on an article has risen over time to the point where she has better odds than a man of earning that position. But this advantage only exists for articles in less prominent journals. Women still have lower odds of receiving first authorships in the most prestigious journals. Progress in the rates at which women appear in the last author position, moreover, appears to have stalled, with women being named to these positions at nearly half the rate of men.

Circulation,137 (2018): 880-882 (OPEN ACCESS)