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, 27 through 30
Excluding: This Week in The Journal, Editorial, Correction
First author gender ratio: 30 women : 28 men (52%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 15 women : 45 men (25%)
Middle author gender ratio: 113 women : 120 men (48%)
All author gender ratio: 158 women : 193 men (45%)

Excluded: 1 first author, 0 last authors, and 9 middle authors. 10 in total.

Neuron
Volume 99, Issue 1 and Issue 2
Excluding: Corrections
First author gender ratio: 16 women : 18 men (47%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 13 women : 25 men (34%)
Middle author gender ratio: 54 women : 141 men (28%)
All author gender ratio: 83 women : 184 men (31%)

Excluded: 0 last authors, 0 first authors, and 7 middle authors. 7 in total.

Nature Neuroscience
Volume 21, Issue 6
Excluding: Corrections
First author gender ratio: 6 women : 7 men (46%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 4 women : 12 men (25%)
Middle author gender ratio: 39 women : 64 men (38%)
All author gender ratio: 49 women : 83 men (37%)

Excluded:0 last authors, 0 first authors, 6 middle authors. 6 in total.

eNeuro
May/June 2018; Volume 5, Issue 3
Excluding: Editorial
First author gender ratio: 6 women : 8 men (43%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 7 women : 9 men (44%)
Middle author gender ratio: 22 women : 29 men (43%)
All author gender ratio: 35 women : 43 men (39%)

Excluded: 0 last authors, 0 first authors, 1 middle author. 7 in total

Nature Neuroscience
Volume 21, Issue 7
Excluding: Amendments & Corrections
First author gender ratio: 8 women : 15 men (35%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 5 women : 19 men (21%)
Middle author gender ratio: 54 women : 118 men (31%)
All author gender ratio: 67 women : 152 men (31%)

Excluded: 0 last authors, 0 first authors and 4 middle authors. 4 in total.