The Gender Gap in Peace and Conflict Journals, 2000-2024

While the issue of gender representation has gained increasing recognition across various academic disciplines, existing knowledge about the current state of gender representation in peace and conflict studies remains limited. This study aims to investigate gender representation in peace and conflict studies by examining a newly collected dataset of articles published in five academic journals representative of the field between 2000 and 2024. We find that, although the gender gap has not disappeared yet, it has narrowed over time. Our results show that increased collaboration, particularly across genders, as well as changes in citation practices over time appear to be important drivers of this trend. Additionally, we find evidence that gender differences in topical specialization exist in the field and that work involving female authors is cited more than all-male research. However, continued efforts are needed to further improve gender representation.