Female participation in science in the past 125 years: An analysis of the Matilda effect over time
An analysis of over 220 million publications from 1900 to 2025 reveals that while female participation in science has surged from 10% to over 40%, the historical Matilda effect—where women were systematically excluded from corresponding authorship—has recently inverted globally, though significant disparities persist in the physical sciences and Asian countries.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine the world of science as a giant, bustling library where millions of books are written every year. For a long time, this library was run almost entirely by men, but over the last century, more and more women have started picking up pens and adding their names to the pages. This library isn't just about writing; it's about who gets to be the "Captain" of the ship. In academic publishing, the "Captain" is the corresponding author—the person whose name is listed as the main contact and leader of the research. It's like the person who signs the contract and takes the bow at the awards ceremony.
However, there's a sneaky problem in this library called the Matilda effect. Imagine a group of friends building a sandcastle together. If a boy and a girl build it, and the boy gets all the credit while the girl is just called "helping out," that's the Matilda effect in action. It's a historical pattern where women's brilliant ideas and hard work get overlooked or credited to their male colleagues, making them invisible in the history books. Scientists have long wondered: Is this unfairness still happening? Is the library finally becoming a place where women get the credit they deserve, or are they still being pushed to the back of the line? This question matters because if we don't know who is leading the science, we might miss out on the full picture of human discovery.
Now, let's dive into what Felix Bittmann and Lutz Bornmann did to solve this mystery. They acted like digital time travelers, using a massive database called OpenAlex to look at over 220 million scientific publications from 1900 to 2025. That's a lot of reading! To figure out who was a woman and who was a man, they used a clever mix of computer programs and smart AI (like a super-smart robot librarian) to guess the gender of about 60 million authors based on their names.
Their main discovery is a story of two different eras. For most of the 20th century, the library was definitely unfair. Even though more women were writing papers, they were rarely the "Captains." The researchers found that for decades, the ratio of female authors to female captains was high, meaning women were doing the work but men were getting the leadership credit. It was a clear case of the Matilda effect: women were systematically left out of the spotlight.
But here comes the plot twist! Over the last 20 years, the story has flipped. The data shows that the unfairness has actually started to disappear. In fact, in recent years, women are now slightly more likely to be the corresponding author than their overall share of writing would suggest. It's as if the library finally realized, "Hey, we've been ignoring the captains in the back row, and now we're making sure they get the mic!" This change didn't happen overnight; it was a slow climb that started gaining speed after the 1970s, with a big push in the last two decades.
Of course, the story isn't the same everywhere. If you look at different subjects, the Health Sciences are the most balanced, with women leading the charge and almost reaching a perfect 50-50 split. The Physical Sciences (like physics and engineering) are still the most male-dominated, with women making up less than 30% of authors, but even there, the unfairness of who gets the "Captain" title has started to fade.
Geography plays a huge role, too. In Latin America, women are nearly equal to men in the library, leading the way globally. In Europe and Anglo-American countries (like the US and UK), things are getting much better, though there was a weird dip right after World War II when men returned from the war and took over the spots women had held. But the most stubborn holdout is Asia. In countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and India, women are still underrepresented, and men are still dominating the "Captain" roles. The researchers suggest this might be due to deep-rooted cultural traditions and strict work expectations that make it harder for women to stay in the game.
The authors are pretty sure about these findings because they checked their work in multiple ways, even looking at only the most famous papers that got cited by others. They admit that their method isn't perfect—guessing gender from names can sometimes be tricky, especially with Asian names where the order of first and last names can confuse the computer—but the big picture is clear. The Matilda effect, that old ghost of unfairness, is finally fading away in most parts of the world, suggesting that the library is slowly becoming a fairer place where the best ideas get the credit they deserve, regardless of who wrote them.
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