PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tal Seidel Malkinson
AU  - Devin B. Terhune
AU  - Mathew Kollamkulam
AU  - Maria J. Guerreiro
AU  - Dani S. Bassett
AU  - Tamar R. Makin
TI  - Gender Imbalance in the Editorial Activities of a Researcher-led Journal
AID  - 10.1101/2021.11.09.467796
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.11.09.467796
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/11/10/2021.11.09.467796.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/11/10/2021.11.09.467796.full
AB  - Editorial decision-making is a fundamental element of the scientific enterprise. We examined whether contributions to editorial decisions at various stages of the publication process is subject to gender disparity, based on analytics collected by the biomedical researcher-led journal eLife. Despite efforts to increase women representation, the board of reviewing editors (BRE) was men-dominant (69%). Moreover, authors suggested more men from the BRE pool, even after correcting for men’s numerical over-representation. Although women editors were proportionally involved in the initial editorial process, they were under-engaged in editorial activities involving reviewers and authors. Additionally, converging evidence showed gender homophily in manuscripts assignment, such that men Senior Editors over-engaged men Reviewing Editors. This tendency was stronger in more gender-balanced scientific disciplines. Together, our findings confirm that gender disparities exist along the editorial process and suggest that merely increasing the proportion of women might not be sufficient to eliminate this bias.Competing Interest StatementTamar Makin is a Senior Editor at eLife. Maria Guerreiro is part of the executive staff team of eLife.