Representation of women in scientific subjects: overview of systematic reviews investigating career progress in academic publishing with a focus on mental health

TY - JOUR

T1 - Representation of women in scientific subjects

T2 - overview of systematic reviews investigating career progress in academic publishing with a focus on mental health

AU - Wykes, Til

AU - Garg, Sanchita

AU - Stahl, Daniel

AU - Kostem, Ayse

AU - Wilson-Lemoine, Emma

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists.

PY - 2025/3/12

Y1 - 2025/3/12

N2 - Background Women's authorship position in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine research reflects career progression, especially the transition from first to last (usually senior) author. Employment of women in mental health sciences has increased, and so should have had an impact on the change to senior author position. Aims To identify if first or last women's authorship has changed, and mental health has better representation. Method We investigated women's authorship position in a systematic review and meta-analyses, following PRISMA guidelines and using random-effects regression analyses. Results We identified 149 studies with sampling periods from 1975 to 2020 (excluding potential COVID-19 pandemic effects) that showed a large variation of women authors, and found an average proportion for first (26.2%) and last (16.1%) author position. In mental health (psychology and psychiatry), there was a higher representation, with 40% first author and 36.7% last author position, whereas medicine was 25.9% and 19.5%, respectively. The rate of change for psychology and psychiatry women authors was also higher every 10 years: 8.56% (95% CI 6.44-10.69%) for first and 6.86% (95% CI 4.57-9.15%) for last author, and rate was 2.35% higher for first author and 2.65% higher for last author than in medicine. Different methods of classifying gender and identification method did not affect our results. Conclusions Although mental health topics seem to fare better, our comprehensive review highlighted that the proportions of women first compared with last authors shows the same leaky pipeline as in other analyses, so we cannot be complacent about gender equality and career progression.

AB - Background Women's authorship position in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine research reflects career progression, especially the transition from first to last (usually senior) author. Employment of women in mental health sciences has increased, and so should have had an impact on the change to senior author position. Aims To identify if first or last women's authorship has changed, and mental health has better representation. Method We investigated women's authorship position in a systematic review and meta-analyses, following PRISMA guidelines and using random-effects regression analyses. Results We identified 149 studies with sampling periods from 1975 to 2020 (excluding potential COVID-19 pandemic effects) that showed a large variation of women authors, and found an average proportion for first (26.2%) and last (16.1%) author position. In mental health (psychology and psychiatry), there was a higher representation, with 40% first author and 36.7% last author position, whereas medicine was 25.9% and 19.5%, respectively. The rate of change for psychology and psychiatry women authors was also higher every 10 years: 8.56% (95% CI 6.44-10.69%) for first and 6.86% (95% CI 4.57-9.15%) for last author, and rate was 2.35% higher for first author and 2.65% higher for last author than in medicine. Different methods of classifying gender and identification method did not affect our results. Conclusions Although mental health topics seem to fare better, our comprehensive review highlighted that the proportions of women first compared with last authors shows the same leaky pipeline as in other analyses, so we cannot be complacent about gender equality and career progression.

KW - Career

KW - gender

KW - glass ceiling

KW - Science, Technology and Engineering

KW - sex

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105000671892

U2 - 10.1192/bjo.2024.820

DO - 10.1192/bjo.2024.820

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:105000671892

SN - 2056-4724

VL - 11

JO - BJPsych Open

JF - BJPsych Open

IS - 2

M1 - e49

ER -