Introduction

In the past twenty years, several studies carried out by the European Commission have pointed out that the presence of women in certain scientific fields is low and does not represent their academic background (European Commission, ). This situation has resulted in the creation of campaigns and in the development of policies in several European countries to try to reduce this gender gap. Accordingly, many bibliometric studies have been conducted to try to determine the scientific production of women in different scientific fields, as well as to try to detect possible gender biases (Jappelli et al., 2017; Mauleón & Bordons, 2006; Rodríguez-Faneca et al., 2021; Van Arensbergen et al., 2012).

Other studies have focused, for instance, on the presence of women on the Editorial Boards (EB) of scientific journals. This interest arises because the participation in such committees provides the opportunity to make relevant decisions that influence both the editorial processes and their policies. In the case of prestigious journals this situation ends up creating an epistemic lobby that contributes to the impulse and development of certain disciplines (Fernández-Cano, 1995), thus acting as obvious referees when the articles that have been sent for review are placed on their specific field of research. On the other hand, members of the Editorial Board can promote journals by encouraging their peers to submit articles for publication (Willett, 2013).

This kind of editorial activity indicates achievement, recognition, and leadership within the academic community (Pan & Zhang, 2014) and also allows for the establishment of important scientific and professional collaboration networks. Hence, it is worth to investigate whether women have been equally incorporated into the Editorial Boards of academic journals and, if so, to what extent.

Our research focuses in Spain, a country that has introduced laws to reduce the gender gap in science. For instance, the 14/2011 law on Technology and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, 2011) states that gender balance in the composition of selection committees must be met in university appointments for permanent professorship positions (European Parliament, 2016). Also, the above-mentioned ministry has created a Women in Science Unit that aims to ensure the gradual establishment of equality policies.

Literature review

The Editorial Boards of medical journals have been reviewed thoroughly. Twelve prestigious medical journals were analysed (Kennedy et al., 2001), finding out that only 25% of them had a woman as its Editor, and that only 17% of these journals had women on their Editorial Boards. Moreover, the Editorial Boards of 16 biomedical high impact journals were analysed during a period of thirty five years (from 1970 to 2005), to determine their number of members, as well as their gender (Jagsi et al., 2008). It was found that during the analysed period there was an increase in the presence of women on Editorial Boards, although this presence did not reach 25%, as there is a shift from an average of 1% in 1970 to an average of 21% in 2005.

In another study on the proportion of women on the Editorial Boards of top-ranked medical journals of WoS-JCR categories, 60 journals were analysed and it was found that out of 4112 members of these Editorial Boards only 15.5% were women (Amrein et al., 2011). These results are very similar to those concerning to the 79 medical and dental journals published from Pakistan where the participation of women on Editorial Boards was 17% (Bakht et al. 2017), although Pakistan has a 143/144 rank in the Gender Equality Index (Schwab et al., 2017).

A study of 10 high-impact surgery journals over 20 years revealed that, although the proportion of women increased from 5 to 19%, men were more likely to retain their positions over time (Harris et al., 2019).

Several studies in the field of Medicine investigate gender differences in the composition of the editorial committees of medical journals. In Dermatology, for instance, committees of 25 journals were analysed over a period of 50 years (Gollins et al., 2017), finding that over all those years only 25 women have been appointed Chief Editors, resulting in a ratio of 1:4.9 compared to the number of men. A similar study was carried out in the area of Anesthesiology. The Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia was analysed between the years 1987 to 2019 (Pagel et al., 2019). It was found that the presence of women was 13%, with an increase in participation from 2.5 in 1987 to 15.8 in 2019. In the same vein, another study was conducted in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia (Lorello et al., 2019), finding that only 10% of the Editorial Board members were women. Another prestigious journal of the field of Pharmacology has also been analysed in this sense. Zehetbauer et al. (2022) carried out a gender analysis of the authors and the editorial board of the journal Naunyn–Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology from the year 2000 to 2020. It was found out that there had been a substantial increase in the proportion of women in the Editorial Board since 2016, as the result of appointments by the editor-in-chief.

In the field of Radiology, another work analysed the most cited journals published in Scimago Journal Rank in the USA, identifying 9 journals for the study (Jalilianhasanpour et al., 2019). It was found that the representation of women with respect to men within the Editorial Boards was not representative according to the percentage of authors by gender in those journals, being the participation of women in these committees of 24%. Another study on four prominent Radiology journals over 40 years revealed that the presence of women was 15.9% compared to men and that no woman had been appointed Chief Editor of any of the journals analysed (Piper et al., 2018).

In the field of Orthopaedic, this aspect has also been studied. It was found that the representation of women was of 3.9% in all the Editorial Board members analysed. This percentage, however, increased from 0.8% in 1970 to 6.5% in 2007 (Okike et al., 2012).

In the area of psychiatry, a random sample of 836 journal Editorial Boards showed a women presence of 30.4% (Hafeez et al., 2019). Other scientific fields show similar results to those of Medicine.

Furthermore, several studies also estate the interest that this subject arouses in the field of pure sciences. The percentage of women in the Editorial Boards of Environmental Biology and Natural Resource Management journals was 16% (Cho et al., 2014). In the case of Ecology and Evolution journals these percentages reach 30% (Fox et al., 2019). As a matter of fact, the percentages of presence of women in the committees are even lower in Mathematics journals where they are quite underrepresented. Only 8.9% of the members of their Editorial Boards are women, according to Topaz and Sen (2016), while in another study these percentages turn out to be as low as 5.7% (Mauleón et al., 2013).

In view of this situation, some journals, such as the journal Chemistry, decided to increase the number of women on their Editorial Boards in 2014. The number of women on its Editorial Board raised from three to five (D’Andola, 2016).

In the field of Social Sciences the interest in knowing the participation of women in the Editorial Boards is also evident. For instance, in Marketing journals the participation of 24% of women in the Editorial Boards of was pointed out by Pan and Zhang (2014), while in the Education journals in Spain this figure reaches 33.5% (Vallejo et al., 2002). The 50 top-ranked journals of Political Sciences were analysed in 2011 and it was found that 18% of the Chief Editors were women (Stegmaier et al., 2011). Likewise, an investigation of the Editorial Board members of 57 management journals between 1998 and 2004 revealed that 80% of the journals included in the study have 20% or less women on their Editorial Boards (Metz & Harzing, 2009). The percentage of women within the Editorial Boards of Social Science journals published in Spain is 19.61 (Mauleón et al., 2013).

In another similar study 33 Physical Education and Sport journals from Spain were analysed. In 13 of them women presence in Editorial Boards did not even reach 15% and in 99.6% of them the Chief Editor was a man (Toro et al., 2015).

In 2003, the Editorial Boards of 19 Latin American Psychology journals indexed in WoS were analysed, showing that women only represent 32.3% of the 1189 board members (González Sala & Osca-Lluch, 2018). In fact, only in 3 journals the number of women on the Editorial Board was higher than that of men.

On another similar study, the Editorial Boards of 36 Economics journals from Italy over a period of 26 years (from 1970 to 1996) were studied (Addis & Vila, 2003). It was found that in 11 of them there were no women and that in 14 they were included only as secretaries of the Editorial Board. Only 5 of them included women (20%), this value being “equal to their representation in the academic profession” (p. 88).

During the literature review no evidence was found of studies carried out on the Editorial Boards in the Arts and Humanities journals in Spain. In the closest study found, 131 journals from Spain that were included in eight Scientific Fields of the Web of Science were analysed. 10 of them were Humanities journals, in which the presence of women was found to be of 23.81% (Mauleón et al., 2013). This scarcity of this type of research in the field in Spain makes it relevant to investigate in some of the areas related to this category.

As Table 1 shows, we have not found any bibliometric studies on the presence of women on the Editorial Boards of journals within the field of Language and Linguistics. Thus, we believe that it is relevant to investigate whether gender patterns observed in other fields of knowledge are reproduced in these group of journals.

Table 1 Summary of women’s presence in Editorial Boards according to previous studies
Full size table

In 2012, the scientific production of Spanish authors within the Language and Linguistics field comprised 4.5% of all articles indexed in SCOPUS (Mas-Bleda & Thewaal, 2016). The bibliometric studies carried out in this area have been oriented to the identification of scientific producion by authors, research centers or co-words (Olmeda-Gómez et al., 2017; Rodríguez-Faneca & Cuida, 2021).

In Spain, during the academic triennium 2017/2018 to 2019/2020, the number of students enrolled in the degrees directly related to linguistics (English Studies, Classical Languages and Foreign Languages, Hispanic Studies, Literature, Modern and Applied Languages and other languages) has been 127,801. Out of those, 73.7% were women, compared to 26.82% of men (Ministerio de Universidades, 2022a). In the case of the teaching and research staff, during the 2019/2020 academic year the number of faculty members in these degrees was similar, 60.3% of women, compared to 39.7% of men (Ministerio de Universidades, 2022b).

The above-mentioned background, as well as the situation of the Spanish scientific production in the Language and Linguistics field and the high percentage of women studying degrees related to this field confirm the relevance of this area of knowledge. Hence, it is noteworthy to determine the level of responsability of women in the management processes of scientific journals in Spain.

Objectives of the study

This study aims to analyse the presence of women within the Editorial Boards and Advisory/Scientific Boards in Spanish journals indexed in SCOPUS under the category Language and Linguistics. The objective is to identify possible gender biases present in these boards.

Materials and methods

This work involves an exploratory study based on document analysis over an intentional sample of journals. The unit of analysis used was the gender composition of the members of the Editorial Boards and Advisory/Scientific Boards of the 54 Spanish Language and Linguistics journals, collected in the Scimago Journal Rank which assigns the impact of journals indexed in SCOPUS and pertaining to the 2018 edition.

This unit of analysis provided us with a larger sample, as only seven Art & Humanities Spanish journals were found in the Journal Citation Reports of the Web of Science. However, all seven journals (VIAL, Porta Linguarum, Sintagma, Iberica, Circulo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, RILCE and Atlantis) are included in this study, as they are also collected in the Scimago Journal Rank and SCOPUS.

The variables considered in relation to the Editorial and Advisory/Scientific Boards for each of the journals were the total number of members (being counted regardless of their appearance in more than one committee), as well as the gender of each of the board members, as well as the role played within the board (Director/Editor, Editorial Board member, Scientific Board member).

Firstly, during the month of December 2019, the Scimago Journal Rank website was consulted in order to collect the necessary data; in this case, journals within the Arts and Humanities category (specifically, the Language and Linguistics section) in the country of Spain. 54 journals were retrieved, including 15 corresponding to the second quartile (Q2), as well as 19 Q3 journals, 18 Q4 journals and two journals without assignment.

Subsequently, the web pages of each journal were visited so as to collect information concerning their committees and their members, as well as their gender. This information was inserted in an ad hoc database.

The gender of each member was determined by their given name. The gender was assigned directly in the database in those cases where the gender was clear, as their given names were written in Spanish (names such as Juan, Pedro, etc.).

In other cases, there could ambiguous names (such as Rosario, which can be both a female and a male given name) or incomplete names (in some cases, only the initials of the given name were known). Thus, in order to be able to correctly assign a gender, a second search was conducted within the webpage of the home institution of this person. This search was aimed to check their biographies, as well as to check their pronouns. For instance, in Spanish the abbreviations Dr. (masculine) and Dra. (feminine) are used to refer to a person holding a Doctoral Degree.

Subsequently, an Excel Visual Basic Application script was coded to assign a gender to each person. This software searched for their first name in a database of names with their corresponding genders, in similar way to Frietsch et al. (2009). This procedure unambiguously identified the gender of each person in 98% of the cases, matching the assignments given manually, except for occasional errors that were corrected afterwards. We have set 0.05 as significance level for all statistical tests conducted.

Results

Table 2 shows the frequencies and percentages of authors who are members of the committees according to their gender for each of the journals analysed. The data presented in Table 2 reveals that most journals (64.8%) show some gender inequality, mostly with male predominance. Women form the majority in only 19 journals, whereas in 5 of them there is absolute parity (50%) between men and women: Revista de Dialectologia y Tradiciones Populares, Porta Linguarum, Dialectologia, Miscelanea, Sefarad and TRANS.

Table 2 Composition by gender of the Editorial Boards of the Spanish journals of Language and Linguistics in Scimago Journal Rank 2018
Full size table

It is also noteworthy that the two journals with the lowest number of members on their Editorial Boards (4) have 100% and 75% women, respectively. Both journals are placed in the second quartile (Q2).

The total number of members of the Editorial Boards of the 54 journals analysed is 640, of which 364 (56.9%) are men and 276 (43.1%) are women. Five male editors participate in two different Editorial Boards. The average number of members of the Editorial Boards is 11.8. The average number of men per journal is 6.7, whereas the number of women per journal is 5.1. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test (Wagner-Menghin, 2005) to check whether the median of women proportion was 50% gave a p-value of 0.087, so the observed differences were not statistically significant.

As for the distribution of the gender of the Editors/Directors of these journals, there is a higher representation of men (53.7%) as compared to women (46.3%), as shown in Table 3. The Binomial Test (Wagner-Menghin, 2005) to contrast whether the percentage of female editors is statistically lower than that of men, results in a value of p = 0.66. Thus, the differences found are not statistically significant.

Table 3 Distribution of gender according to the role within the Editorial Board
Full size table

With respect to the gender of the editors/directors and its relation to the impact of the journals analysed, it is noted that there is also a higher representation of men in all quartiles (Table 4). In journals where a SJR quartile has not yet been assigned, the editors are always male.

Table 4 Gender of the journal Editor/Director by quartile
Full size table

As for the Editorial Boards, it can be noted that the journals belonging to the fourth quartile (Q4) are the ones with a higher percentage of women performing this role (65.61%), thus showing a wide gender gap. The journals belonging to the second and third quartile (Q2 and Q3) show small differences in this respect. In the two journals that have not been assigned SJR values yet, men double the number of women in the role of Editor (as shown in Fig. 1). It is observed that, at a purely descriptive level, the higher the quartile, the lower the number of women on their Editorial Boards. The Chi-square Test was used to check if there are significative differences in the proportion of genders according to the journal’s quartile results. There is no statistically significant evidence, as the value determined was p = 0.96.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Editorial Boards by gender and quartile (SQ = journals without SJR values)

Full size image

The Advisory/Scientific Boards of the journals analysed are formed by 1179 subjects. Men represent 56.06% of their members, while women represent 43.94% of them. The average number of members on these committees is 21.8. Considering the position of the journals in their quartiles, it can be appreciated that the gender gap decreases in those corresponding to the third quartile and in those journals which have not been assigned SJR values yet, with a difference of 10–12%. In the second and third quartiles this gender gap increases, as shown in Fig. 2. In only 9 journals (16.66%) there are more women than men within the Scientific Board.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Advisory/Scientific Boards according to their gender (SQ = journals without SJR values)

Full size image

The Median Test was used to check whether there are differences in the number of members of the Editorial Board according to the gender of the Editor. This test resulted in a value of p = 0.4129. Therefore, there is no statistically significant evidence of the abovementioned trend.

If the values obtained in the present research are compared with those of different studies where this topic has been addressed, it can be observed that in this field the value determined were higher (43.1%), unlike the value obtained for Education Journals (33.5%) (Vallejo et al., 2002), which are, in turn, the highest in the whole area of knowledge of Social Sciences. In addition, the value obtained in this study (43.1%) is much higher than those obtained in the studies carried out on journals in the field of Medicine, where the highest percentage was found within Radiology journals (21%) (Jalilianhasanpour et al., 2019).

Conclusions

One of the main findings of this study has been the disparity found in the size of the Editorial Boards of the journals analysed, as the number of members varies from only 4 members to 35.

Within the area analysed in this research, the Spanish Language and Linguistics journals, it is noted that number of men and women present in their Editorial Boards is practically identical. In view of the above, it can be stated that these Editorial Boards do not show a gender bias, which also means that they make a substantial difference with respect to the Editorial Boards in other fields of knowledge. This has also become evident when analysing the figure of the Editor/Director of these journals, as all the differences observed are not statistically significant and may be due to chance.

Compared with other fields from Social Sciences, the area object of study shows higher gender equality in terms of participation of women on EB. The second place is held by the field of Education, where the percentage of women was 33.5% in 2002 (Vallejo et al., 2002). and Psychology, with 32.3% of women in 2018 (González Sala & Osca-Lluch, 2018).

It can be clearly observed that within this area of knowledge women have been offered the same opportunities to participate in the Editorial Board. As Cho et al. (2005) state, this may imply, in a sense, a benefit for all women, as the occupation of prominent positions in committees and academic bodies can make them become models and references for young women who are starting their academic careers.

We consider that this study could be extended to journals of the same category (Language and Linguistics Journals) at an international level. Thus, it will be possible to prove if the results obtained form an identifiable pattern of the journals belonging to this area, or if they follow a local pattern that could be motivated, in turn, by the policies on gender equality promoted in Spain.

Limitations

Our study has certain limitations, which are outlined in this section. As some Editorial Board members belonged to more than one journal they were quantified for each journal. This may have had a minor or non-significant impact on the results. Moreover, we did not consider the particularities of each journal, such as the characteristics of their subfield of knowledge or the proportion of men and women working in it. Nor it was taken into account if the journal grants any kind of financial reward for being a member of the editorial team. Also, as some researchers claim (Alonso-Arroyo et al., 2021), it is not possible to know how many men and women the journals have invited to participate in their committees or how many have declined the invitation and what their gender is.