Women scholars are underrepresented as authors on invited publications in elite psychology journals

What is it about?

Invited publications are those for which a particular scholar is requested by an editor to submit an article. These invitations are based on professional reputation and indicate perceived prestige. Authorship of invited publications in elite journals increases the visibility of an academic’s work and can lead to professional opportunities and career progression. Women are under-represented in senior ranks in academic psychology, despite being over-represented in entry-level academic positions. Many explanations for this have been posed, such as heftier caring responsibilities, greater service demands, heavier teaching loads, and gendered bias that leads to women’s achievements being undervalued. We used authorship of invited publications as an indicator of professional esteem and determined whether women authors were underrepresented relative to their numbers in the professoriate. We found that women were disproportionately underrepresented, even after taking other factors into account. Men were more likely to publish in all-men teams than women were to publish in all-women teams. Women were also more likely to be authors when the senior author was a woman than a man.

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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings show that women scholars are underrepresented in invited publications in high-profile psychology journals, despite women earning more doctorates in psychology than men for several decades. Given the significance of such publications to career progression, transparent, systemic action by journal editors—and in academic psychology more broadly—is needed to address this problem.

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