Investigating gender differences in journal selection decisions : a survey of academic researchers

This article examines the impact of gender on researchers’ journal selection decisions, and thereby seeks to contribute to previous research on the impact of gender on academics’ career progression and publishing performance. Prior research suggests that female academics suffer from lower levels of career progression and publishing than male academics. Researchers suggest various explicit factors that might influence this scenario, including bias in hiring, choice of discipline, and under-representation of women in the academic workforce. However, no previous research has explored the factors associated with the publishing process itself that may also come into play. Using an international survey, this article explores gender differences in relation to several groups of journal choice factors including: expectations regarding the reviewing process, university policies and norms, familiarity with the journal, confidence, and publishing objectives. Whilst both genders agree on the importance of some factors, it is also evident that women are more alert to issues of authority, expectations placed on them regarding publishing high quality articles, and career progression than are men, suggesting that women know what they need to do to succeed, although recent research still reports significant gender differences in output of scholarly publications.