(113) Women’s Representation in Major Obstetrics and Gynecology Journals

To examine the number of women as first and senior authors in four journals in obstetrics and gynecology over two decades.

Study Design:

This bibliometric analysis included all original research articles published in 1999, 2009, and 2019 in four obstetrics and gynecology journals—Gynecologic Oncology (Gynecol Oncol), Obstetrics and Gynecology (Obstet Gynecol), Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery (JMIGS), and Fertility and Sterility (Fertil Steril). Other types of publications including case reports, reviews, and editorials were excluded. The sex of the author was determined by a Google-based webtool. For inconclusive results, a Google search of the authors was attempted to identify gender. If we were not able to identify the sex of the authors, they were excluded from the analysis. Proportions of female first and senior authors were assessed yearly. Interrupted time-series analysis was performed using an autoregressive integrated moving average.

Results:

A total of 2,781 articles were analyzed, with a total of 5562 authors. 518 authors (9.3%) were excluded. Over two decades, the proportions of both first and senior authors nearly doubled in all four journals. For example, in 1999, the proportions of the first author were 24.7%, 37.4%, 14.6%, and 27.1% in Gynecol Oncol, Obstet Gynecol, JMIGS, and Fertil Steril, respectively. In 2019, the proportions of the first author were 60.4%, 68.7%, 44.9%, and 57.9% in Gynecol Oncol, Obstet Gynecol, JMIGS, and Fertil Steril, respectively. This increase in proportions was statistically significant (all P < 0.001).

Conclusion:

Proportions of female first and senior authors nearly doubled over two decades.