STEM Papers By Women Take Longer For Peer Review Than Men, Shows Study

Ask enough women in academia, and you’ll hear the same complaint again and again. Their papers seem to take longer to get through peer review. For years, this was brushed off as a feeling. An impression. Something anecdotal. But recent research says otherwise.

Across multiple academic disciplines, evidence now shows that papers authored by women do, in fact, spend more time under review before publication than those authored by men.

One of the largest studies on this issue comes from PLOS Biology. Researchers analysed around 36.5 million biomedical and life sciences papers indexed on PubMed. The results were consistent.

Papers authored by women spent between 7.4 per cent and 14.6 per cent longer in peer review than those authored by men. Over the course of a career, that translated into an additional 350 to 750 days of waiting for every 50 papers published by a female researcher.

The breakdown is revealing. Papers with a female first author spent about seven extra days under review. Papers with a female corresponding author spent roughly thirteen extra days.

When both the first and corresponding authors were women, the delay rose to around fifteen days. Papers written entirely by women also took longer to review than papers written entirely by men.

Why Peer Review Delays Matter More Than We Admit

Peer review is the gatekeeper of academic life. Before a paper sees the light of publication, experts evaluate the methods, check the findings, and question the conclusions. Revisions are common. Sometimes multiple rounds of them. And time matters here. A lot.

Publications influence hiring decisions, promotions, tenure, grant funding, and professional reputation. Even a few extra weeks can throw off a grant deadline or a job application. Over time, repeated delays quietly stack up, shaping careers in ways that are hard to reverse.

Where the Delays Are Most Visible

The clearest evidence of gender-based review delays appears in Economics. Studies show that papers authored by women in leading economics journals spend three to six months longer under review than those authored by men.

What’s striking is what happens during that time. These studies found that women made greater improvements to their abstracts during peer review, producing clearer and more readable final versions. That suggests women may be meeting higher evaluative standards before their work is deemed publishable.

Why Underrepresentation Isn’t the Full Answer

Women are still underrepresented in academia, particularly in senior roles and STEM fields. They are also more likely to shoulder heavier teaching loads, administrative work, and unpaid domestic labour.

All of this affects research output. But it doesn’t explain why a completed manuscript, once submitted, takes longer to move through peer review. The delay begins after the work is already done.

The Long-Term Cost of Waiting

Longer review times slow career progression, delay access to funding, and reduce annual publication output. Academic success is cumulative, so even small delays can snowball.

By mid-career, two equally capable researchers can end up at very different professional levels, largely because one spent more time waiting for their work to be recognised.

So What Does This Mean?

Women in academia aren’t imagining this. In several fields, their research does take longer to pass through peer review. The reasons vary, and they include both structural issues and evidence of higher evaluative standards. However, academic progress should depend on the quality of research, not on delays in acknowledging it.

Views expressed by the author are their own.