Articles | Volume 14, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-14-485-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Quantifying gender gaps in seismology authorship
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- Final revised paper (published on 08 May 2023)
- Supplement to the final revised paper
- Preprint (discussion started on 04 Oct 2022)
- Supplement to the preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-810', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Oct 2022
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Laura Ermert, 10 Feb 2023
- AC3: 'Editor and community comments', Laura Ermert, 10 Feb 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-810', Benjamin Fernando, 09 Nov 2022
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Laura Ermert, 10 Feb 2023
- AC3: 'Editor and community comments', Laura Ermert, 10 Feb 2023
Peer review completion
AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload
AR by Laura Ermert on behalf of the Authors (10 Feb 2023)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish as is (14 Feb 2023) by Caroline Beghein
ED: Publish as is (05 Apr 2023) by Susanne Buiter (Executive editor)
AR by Laura Ermert on behalf of the Authors (12 Apr 2023)
Paper investigates female authorship of peer-reviewed publications in seismology. The topic of the paper is high significance as authorship of scientific peer-reviewed papers remains an important criterion for assessing researchers’ performance and consequent career advancement. Therefore, any biases or underrepresentation of any demographic groups may lead to lower chance of recognitions (job opportunities, career progressions, funding, etc.).
I will not comment on the probabilistic approach of determining the gender of authors based on the first name nor on the statistical method. However, the size of the sample used is sound in terms of statistical significance. The overall reasoning and justifications of various decisions is very appropriate.
The results are quite relevant and of interest. The representation by journal is very useful and (potentially) an eye-opener to both female and male authors.
In the discussion, the authors compared their results to those of the European Commission. They observed a correlation between 24% of authorship by women and 30% women representation in natural sciences. I am not sure it adds much to the discussion as this comparison is very difficult and thus any correlation is oversimplified.
In the same line, there are attempts to draw correlations between different fields (i.e. life sciences), which may oversimplify the unique dynamics of each scientific field. However, the lack of more data specific to geosciences in general and seismology in particular explains the comparison with other fields – even if I would prefer to see some more cautiousness in the next stage. In fact, perhaps this limitation of the interpretation / comparisons would deserved to be better highlighted.
Correlations with and extrapolation from EGU data is an important asset of the paper, as it represents an important reliable data specific to geosciences and seismology. However, EGU data is rather complex. There are membership datasets, registration at General Assembly (GA) datasets, and there have been changes on how data is collected (i.e. gender changed from optional or mandatory field a few times…). The last two years of GA were also severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions (online vs. onsite vs hybrid) which adds other layers of complexity to its data. In conclusion, I would strongly encourage the authors to pursue comparisons with EGU data but either in a dedicated chapter or even paper.
The paper conclusions are interesting and the conclusions are of interest for all other fields . Especially, the last bullet “Those evaluating research performance should remain aware that there are, as of now, gender gaps in high-productivity, solo, and high-impact authorship in seismology. ”point that deserves a large dissemination. The authors could go even further in terms of ambition in the set of recommendations.