Briefing: US environmental science women are high-impact team players

Abstract

In the context of continuing gender inequality in environmental science, this briefing investigates the evolution of the share of female first-authored journal articles in US environmental science specialisms in 1996–2018 and whether there are gender differences in average citation impact. The proportion of female first authors has increased by at least 16% in all 11 Scopus environmental science categories in the USA, with none achieving a female majority by 2018. Female last authors were rarer and increased less during the same period. There is a citation (ratio) advantage for female first-authored research of 2–10% that could be partly accounted for by females tending to lead larger teams (up to 8% if team size is factored out). Irrespective of the main author’s gender, extra authors produce expected citation rate increases of between 6% for an ecology second author and 70% for at least five waste management and disposal authors. The female citation advantage in one field might be substantial enough to boost female careers, although collaboration is a much stronger indicator of greater impact.