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, 40 through 44
Excluding: This Week in The Journal, Editorial, Correction
First author gender ratio: 35 women : 48 men (42%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 30 women : 56 men (35%)
Middle author gender ratio: 156 women : 251 men (38%)
All author gender ratio: 221 women : 355 men (38%)

Excluded: 1 last author, 1 first authors and 14 middle authors. 16 in total.

Neuron
Volume 100, Issue 1 and Issue 2
Excluding: Corrections
First author gender ratio: 12 women : 21 men (36%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 18 women : 21 men (46%)
Middle author gender ratio: 55 women : 149 men (27%)
All author gender ratio: 85 women : 191 men (31%)

Excluded: 0 last author, 1 first author and 7 middle authors. 8 in total.

Nature Neuroscience
Volume 21, Issue 10
Excluding: Corrections
First author gender ratio: 6 women : 15 men (29%)
Last/sole author gender ratio: 5 women : 17 men (23%)
Middle author gender ratio: 27 women : 73 men (27%)
All author gender ratio: 38 women : 105 men (27%)

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