Closing the gender authorship gap

Since the mid-1960s, slightly more men than women have been present on this planet. In 2022, 4 billion males and 3.95 billion females were living worldwide, implying 50.4% of the world population is male and 49.6% female. By 2050, however, it is expected that the sex ratio will even out and, after 2050, females will outnumber males [1]. Currently, women already outnumber men in the older age groups because of the differences in mortality between men and women, with woman tending to live longer than men.

Although females account for a significant proportion of the patient population, in the past women were excluded from participation in studies. Therefore, research data collected from men were generalized to women, despite the fact that disease symptoms and drug metabolism are different in women and men. The gap in female data resulted in longer times to diagnosis for women than for men, with more frequent misdiagnoses and women more often mistakenly discharged while having a serious medical event [2]. Although this gender gap is improving, it is still present [3].

But what about a gender gap in authorships? In this issue of Endoscopy, Elisabetta Mastrorocco et al. performed a systematic review to assess whether there is a gender gap in the authorship of scientific research in gastrointestinal journals and in the principal investigators [4] of ongoing research.