The gendering effects of co-authorship in criminology & criminal justice research

Abstract

Historically, research from various fields has indicated that females are underrepresented in academic papers. Not only are females less likely to publish relative to males, but they are also less likely to be sole-, co-, and first-authors in journal publications. While this gender discrepancy has become smaller in recent decades, males are still disproportionately represented in academic papers. The current study reviews author characteristics of articles published in the top fifteen criminology/criminal justice journals over a forty-year period (1974–2014). Among the 11,348 articles in the study, results indicated that while female sole- and first-authorship increased throughout the study period, 26.6% of sole-authors were female while 32% were first-authors and composed 33.3% of all co-authors. Further, females were less likely to be sole- and first-authors, less likely to have co-authors, and more likely to publish with other female co-authors.

Keywords:

• Gender
• authorship
• publishing
• criminology/criminal justice

Notes

1. Several journals have not been in operation since 1974 but all articles were included since the journals’ starting publication dates.

2. The most recent rankings for CCJ journals per JCR^® are from 2013. However, our data extend until 2014 in order to get the most current understanding of gender and authorship.

3. Tables for ANOVA post hoc comparison tests are available upon request.