Explaining Gender in the Journals: How Submission Practices Affect Publication Patterns in Political Science

Abstract

In recent work, Teele and Thelen (2017) documented the underrepresentation of female-authored scholarship in a broad selection of political science journals. To better understand these patterns, we present the results of an original, individual-level survey of political scientists conducted in the spring of 2017. Confirming Teele and Thelen's speculation, our evidence indicates that differences in submission rates underlie the gender gap in publication-a pattern particularly pronounced for the discipline's top three journals. Leveraging original survey items, we pursue explanations of the submission gap, finding that both methodological specialization and attitudes toward publication strategies play roles. Importantly, we also conclude that men and women obtain differential returns on their investments in coauthorship: although male and female respondents report identical propensities to coauthor, coauthorship boosts submission and publication rates more strongly for men than women. We discuss the implications of our findings for ongoing conversations about inequality in political science.