Author positions: subject area

The proportion of female authorships in first and last author positions is shown for each subject area covered by papers in the Nature Index in 2025. First authorship often reflects early-career researchers, while last authorship typically indicates the senior or principal investigator.

Gender was inferred by feeding unique combinations of first name, last name and origin country/territory to an algorithm. The analysis counts authorship instances rather than individual authors and so reflects publication activity rather than a strict headcount of individuals. See methodology for more information.

A guide to author gender ratio data on Nature Index

Health-sciences journals were added to the Nature Index in 2022.

Back to the Nature Index author gender ratio

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