Gender imbalances of retraction prevalence among highly cited authors and among all authors

Importance

Retractions are rare but increasingly common in scientific publishing. Understanding whether gender disparities exist in retraction rates, especially among top-performing scientists, may inform broader efforts to promote equity and research integrity.

Objective

To assess gender disparities in the likelihood of having retracted publications among highly cited and all other authors, and to explore how these vary across scientific fields, countries, and publication age cohorts.

Design

Cross-sectional bibliometric analysis incorporating retraction data into Scopus-based databases of top-cited scientists (top 2%) and all authors with ≥5 publications. Retraction data were obtained from Retraction Watch and linked with author-level citation metrics.

Setting

Global, science-wide analysis using data from authors in all disciplines indexed in Scopus.

Participants

A total of 10,361,367 authors with ≥5 publications were included; 217,097 were among the top 2% most-cited authors. Gender was confidently assigned using NamSor for 8,267,888 authors. Authors with uncertain gender were excluded from gender-specific analyses.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Gender-specific retraction rates and the relative propensity (R) of women vs men to have at least one retraction, overall and stratified by citation status, field, country income level, publication age cohort and publication volumes.

Results

Among highly cited authors, retraction rates were 3.3% in men and 2.9% in women; among all authors, rates were 0.7% for both genders. Differences varied by field: women’s rates were at least one-third lower than men’s (R < 0.67) in Biology, Biomedical Research, and Psychology (R□< □0.67), but higher (R□> □1.33) in Economics, Engineering, and Information and Communication Technologies. Among highly cited authors, younger cohorts showed increasingly higher rates among men (4.2% men vs. 3.0% women in those starting to publish in 2002–2011; 8.7% men vs. 4.9% women in those starting post-2011). Country-level differences among highly cited authors were pronounced in some countries, as in Pakistan (28.7% men vs. 14.3% women). Among all authors, country-level gender differences were small.

Conclusions and Relevance

Gender differences in retraction rates exist but are modest. Field, country, and publication volume are stronger correlates. Structural and contextual factors likely drive retraction patterns and warrant further investigation.

KEY POINTS