Cross-sectional study of the relationship between women’s representation among editors and peer reviewers in journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group

ObjectivesTo investigate whether there is an association between women’s representation as peer reviewers and editors of medical journals.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, the gender of editors and peer reviewers of journals of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group (BMJ-PG) in 2020 was determined based on given names. Trends over time were analysed for the BMJ between 2009 and 2017.ResultsOverall, this study included 47 of the 74 journals in the BMJ-PG. Women accounted for 30.2% of the 42 539 peer reviewers, with marked variation from 8% to 50%. Women represented 33.4% of the 555 editors, including 19.2% of the 52 editors-in-chief. There was a moderate positive correlation between the percentage of women as editors and as reviewers (Spearman correlation coefficient 0.590; p