Is there gender bias in the peer-review process in several Elsevier’s marine journals?

One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of the peer review process is gender bias. In this study we evaluated the grant peer review process (external reviewers’ ratings, and board of trustees’ final decision: approval or no approval for funding) at the Austrian Science Fund with respect to gender. The data consisted of 8,496 research proposals (census) across all disciplines from 1999 to 2009, which were rated on a scale from 1 to 100 (poor to excellent) by 18,357 external reviewers in 23,977 reviews. In line with the current state of research, we found that the final decision was not associated with applicant’s gender or with any correspondence between gender of applicants and reviewers. However, the decisions on the grant applications showed a robust female reviewer salience effect. The approval probability decreases (up to 10%), when there is parity or a majority of women in the group of reviewers. Our results confirm an overall gender null hypothesis for the peer review process of men’s and women’s grant applications in contrast to claims that women’s grants are systematically downrated.

Download Full-text

How Gendered Is the Peer-Review Process? A Mixed-Design Analysis of Reviewer Feedback

Political Science and Politics ◽

10.1017/s1049096521000937 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Thomas König ◽

Guido Ropers

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Gender Bias ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process ◽

American Political Science Review ◽

Mixed Design ◽

Scholarly Journals ◽

Male And Female ◽

Female Authors ◽

American Political Science

ABSTRACT A fair peer-review process is essential for the integrity of a discipline’s scholarly standards. However, underrepresentation of scholarly groups casts doubt on fairness, which currently is raising concerns about a gender bias in the peer-review process of premier scholarly journals such as the American Political Science Review (APSR). This study examines gender differences in APSR reviewing during the period 2007–2020. Our explorative analysis suggests that male reviewers privilege male authors and female reviewers privilege female authors, whereas manuscripts reviewed by both male and female reviewers indicate less gender bias. Using within-manuscript variation to address confounding effects, we then show that manuscripts reviewed by both male and female reviewers receive a more positive evaluation by female reviewers in terms of recommendation and sentiment, but they experience a marginally longer duration. Because these effects are not specific for type of authorship, we recommend that invitations to review should reflect mixed compositions of peers, which also may avoid overburdening an underrepresented group with review workload.

Download Full-text

Is There Gender Bias in JAMA's Peer Review Process?

JAMA ◽

10.1001/jama.1994.03520020065018 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 272 (2) ◽

pp. 139 ◽

Cited By ~ 85

Author(s):

Julie R. Gilbert

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Gender Bias ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process

Download Full-text

Is There Gender Bias in the Peer Review Process at Journal of Neurophysiology?

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00196.2009 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 101 (5) ◽

pp. 2195-2196 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

John A. Lane ◽

David J. Linden

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Gender Bias ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process

Download Full-text

Is there gender bias in JAMA's peer review process?

JAMA ◽

10.1001/jama.272.2.139 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 272 (2) ◽

pp. 139-142 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

J. R. Gilbert

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Gender Bias ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process

Download Full-text

Gender bias in scholarly peer review

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.21718 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

Cited By ~ 92

Author(s):

Markus Helmer ◽

Manuel Schottdorf ◽

Andreas Neef ◽

Demian Battaglia

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Gender Bias ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process ◽

Public Information ◽

Scholarly Publishing ◽

Gender Preference ◽

Peer Reviewers ◽

Same Gender

Peer review is the cornerstone of scholarly publishing and it is essential that peer reviewers are appointed on the basis of their expertise alone. However, it is difficult to check for any bias in the peer-review process because the identity of peer reviewers generally remains confidential. Here, using public information about the identities of 9000 editors and 43000 reviewers from the Frontiers series of journals, we show that women are underrepresented in the peer-review process, that editors of both genders operate with substantial same-gender preference (homophily), and that the mechanisms of this homophily are gender-dependent. We also show that homophily will persist even if numerical parity between genders is reached, highlighting the need for increased efforts to combat subtler forms of gender bias in scholarly publishing.

Download Full-text