Gender Analysis of Journal of Perinatology Authorship During COVID-19

Background: Gender disparities are well documented in many facets of medical careers, especially career advancement and scholarly work. Although the majority of neonatologists in the US are female, they are underrepresented as authors in pediatric-focused journals. Early reports show the COVID-19 pandemic amplified these baseline gender disparities. Our objective was to examine gender distributions of authorship and how they may have changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Journal of Perinatology, the journal for the Section of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.

Methods: We collected data from the Journal of Perinatology website; variables included name of first and last author, date of publication, country and institution of first author, and if article was listed as supported by any funding. Gender (female, male, nonbinary, or undetermined) was determined using Genderize.io, institutional websites, ResearchGate, social media outlets including LinkedIn and Doximity, or a general Google search. Our primary outcome was the difference between the number of articles authored by women during the pandemic period (March 2020-May 2021, period 2), compared with the preceding 15 month period (December 2018-February 2020, period 1). We analyzed the data using chi-square test.

Results: Author characteristics are presented in Table 1. The number of publications increased from period 1 to 2. Of the 1,230 first and last authors from the combined periods, we were unable to determine binary gender for 24 authors (1.9%). Less than half (42.6%) of articles were supported by funding, with the majority having a female in either the first or last author position. Table 2 demonstrates the change in authorship by gender and time period. There were slightly fewer female authors overall (47.7%) and as last author (38.7%) for the combined time periods, compared with non-female authors. There was no significant difference in the proportion of female authors to non-female authors from time period one to time period two in regard to overall, first, or last authorship.

Conclusion: The distribution of author gender in the Journal of Perinatology did not change significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Female authors still remain underrepresented overall and specifically as last author, which raises concerns about under-attainment in career advancement. As the majority of the neonatology workforce is female, this trend warrants further investigation.