Retraction according to gender: A descriptive study

ABSTRACT

Although the underrepresentation of women in publication is a proven fact, there is no information on its counterpart: retractions. Using a previously studied cohort of retractions, the gender of the first author was checked manually to see if there was a similar pattern in the reasons for retraction for women and men authors. Out of 120 retractions, gender was identified for 113 (94.2%). A total of 42 (37.2%) retractions concerned publications authored by women and the reasons for retraction were significantly different between men and women authors. Overall, fraud and plagiarism accounted for 28.6 and 59.2% of women and men-authored retractions, respectively. These findings may have implications as regards training in responsible conduct in research; however, without further investigating larger cohorts and a better understanding of underlying mechanisms, it would be premature to draw any firm conclusions at this stage.

KEYWORDS:

• Misconduct
• retraction
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data and materials

Data used in the study is available on PubMed and on the internet, our study dataset is available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.