The Extent of Gender Gap in Citations in Ophthalmology Literature

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the severity and causes of gender imbalance in the counts of ophthalmology citations. Methods: ) between August 2015 and July 2020, and those that referenced these cited papers by 2021 July (i.e., citing papers). The gender category of a given paper is defined by the gender of the first and last author (MM, FM, MF, and FF; M means male and F means female). A generalized additive model to predict the expected proportion was fitted. The difference between the observed proportion and expected proportion of citations of a paper's gender category was the primary outcome. Results: The proportion of female-led (MF and FF) papers slightly increased from 27% in 2015 to 30% in 2020. MM, FM, MF, and FF papers were cited as -9.3, -1.5, 13.0, and 23.9% more than expected, respectively. MM papers cited 13.9% more male-led (MM and FM) papers than female-led papers, and FF papers cited 33.5% fewer male-led papers than female-led papers. The difference between the observed proportion and expected proportion of MM citing papers within male-led and female-led cited papers grew at a rate of 0.13 and 0.67% per year. Conclusion: The high frequency of citations of female-led papers might narrow the gender gap in the citation count within ophthalmology. These findings show that papers by female-led are less common, so the gender gap might still exist even with their high citation count.

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