Do male leading authors retract more articles than female leading authors?

2025-07-22

AI Summary

This study investigates the association between first-author gender and paper retraction rates. Leveraging integrated data from Web of Science and Retraction Watch—comprising 11,622 retracted papers and nearly 19.5 million non-retracted papers—we employ multivariate regression and stratified analyses by discipline, country, and retraction reason. Our analysis, the first large-scale global examination of gender disparities in misconduct-driven retractions, reveals that male first authors are significantly overrepresented in retractions attributable to plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, and ethical violations, whereas no significant gender difference exists for error-related retractions. Parallel patterns hold for corresponding authors. Notably, female authors exhibit relatively higher retraction rates in mathematics and computer science—fields where they remain underrepresented overall. By moving beyond unidimensional gender analysis, this work provides empirical evidence on the gendered dimensions of research integrity and offers actionable insights for policy development aimed at promoting equitable research practices.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Bias, Fairness & Privacy
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Machine Learning: Ethics, Bias, and Fairness

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity
• Social Networks and Social Media: Fairness and bias in social network and social media analysis
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Scientific retractions reflect issues within the scientific record, arising from human error or misconduct. Although gender differences in retraction rates have been previously observed in various contexts, no comprehensive study has explored this issue across all fields of science. This study examines gender disparities in scientific misconduct or errors, specifically focusing on differences in retraction rates between male and female first authors in relation to their research productivity. Using a dataset comprising 11,622 retracted articles and 19,475,437 non-retracted articles from the Web of Science and Retraction Watch, we investigate gender differences in retraction rates from the perspectives of retraction reasons, subject fields, and countries. Our findings indicate that male first authors have higher retraction rates, particularly for scientific misconduct such as plagiarism, authorship disputes, ethical issues, duplication, and fabrication/falsification. No significant gender differences were found in retractions attributed to mistakes. Furthermore, male first authors experience significantly higher retraction rates in biomedical and health sciences, as well as in life and earth sciences, whereas female first authors have higher retraction rates in mathematics and computer science. Similar patterns are observed for corresponding authors. Understanding these gendered patterns of retraction may contribute to strategies aimed at reducing their prevalence.

Problem

• Gender disparity in scientific retraction rates
• Male vs female first author retraction differences
• Retraction reasons and field-specific gender patterns

Innovation

• Analyzed gender disparities in retraction rates
• Used Web of Science and Retraction Watch data
• Examined retraction reasons across scientific fields