Methods:

See our January 2018 Journal Watch post for details on methods.

Base rates:

First authors are more likely to be graduate students or postdoctoral fellows. Using our calculations based on registration for the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, 49% of graduate students and postdocs in neuroscience are women.

For last or sole authors we take the base rate to be 32%,  the percentage of women faculty at the same meeting. We take the base rate for all authors to be the overall percentage of 43%.

Data:

Journal of Neuroscience
Volume 38, 18 through 22
Excluding: This Week in The Journal, Editorial, Correction
First author gender ratio: 26 women : 43 men (38%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 17 women : 58 men (23%)
Middle author gender ratio: 106 women : 179 men (37%)
All author gender ratio: 149 women : 280 men (35%)

Excluded: 1 last author, 4 first authors and 15 middle authors. 20 in total.

Neuron
Volume 98, Issue 3 and Issue 4
Excluding: Corrections
First author gender ratio: 6 women : 30 men (17%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 19 women : 17 men (53%)
Middle author gender ratio: 56 women : 115 men (33%)
All author gender ratio: 81 women : 162 men (33%)

Excluded: 1 last author, 0 first authors and 5 middle authors. 6 in total.

Nature Neuroscience
Volume 21, Issue 5
Excluding: None
First author gender ratio: 3 women : 9 men (25%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 3 women : 12 men (20%)
Middle author gender ratio: 24 women : 37 men (39%)
All author gender ratio: 30 women : 58 men (34%)

Excluded: 0 last authors, 0 first authors and 1 middle author. 1 in total.