Gender Representation on Journal Editorial Boards in the Mathematical Sciences

Area of Science:

• Mathematical Sciences
• Gender Studies
• Bibliometrics

Background:

• Women constitute approximately 15% of U.S. tenure-track faculty in mathematical sciences.
• Existing data on gender distribution in academic publishing, particularly in mathematics, is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify gender representation on editorial boards of mathematical science journals.
• To identify variations in representation across different journals, subfields, publishers, and countries.
• To introduce a novel semi-automated method for gender inference in large-scale studies.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 13,067 editorships across 435 mathematical science journals.
• Development and application of a semi-automated gender inference tool with 97.5% accuracy.
• Comparative analysis against the proportion of women in U.S. mathematical sciences faculty.

Main Results:

• Women hold 8.9% of editorships, below their academic representation.
• Significant variations in gender representation were observed across journals, subfields, publishers, and countries.
• The developed semi-automated method provides a scalable approach for gender distribution studies.

Conclusions:

• Gender disparity exists on editorial boards in mathematical sciences.
• Further research is needed to understand and address these underrepresentations.
• The methodology can be applied to study gender distribution in other academic fields.