Gender Gap in Academic Surgery: Disparities in Early-Career Scholarly Productivity Sets the Stage for Unequal Academic Advancement

Gender disparities exist in academic surgery despite advances in the field. This study aimed to examine the extent of gender disparities in career advancement and promotion among academic faculty in surgery and understand the influence of academic productivity.

Cross-sectional study using publicly available information from online faculty profiles of 18 large academic US general surgery residency programs. Gender equality was examined overall and as subgroups by career stage (late-, mid-, and early-career) to account for differences over time. Logistic regression identified factors associated with gender disparities. Mediation analysis examined if the gender difference in academic advancement was mediated by academic productivity.

Of the 1467 faculty members, 388 (26.4%) were women. Gender disparity in academic advancement was observed in the early-career cohort (33.4% versus 23.8%, P = 0.006). Women in the early-career cohort were nearly 40% less likely to achieve academic advancement (odds ratio 0.62 [95% confidence interval 0.44-0.88]) and more than 50% less likely to have >30 publications (odds ratio 0.45 [95% confidence interval 0.32-0.63]) than men. The effect of gender was no longer significant once publication volume and fellowship training was incorporated into the model on multivariable regression. Mediation analysis showed that >30 publications mediated nearly 67% of the effect of gender on academic advancement in the early-career cohort.

The gender gap in academic advancement for early-career faculty can partially be explained by the lower number of publications produced by women faculty. Institutions need to ensure that resources and support are designed to ensure equal opportunities regardless of gender.