Ascertain gender distribution and author roles in Indian-affiliated retractions

Determine the gender distribution of authors and the roles of authors in the retracted publications with Indian affiliations analyzed using the Crossref-acquired Retraction Watch database, given the current lack of sufficient author identity detail to infer gender and roles.

Background

Author names in the analyzed dataset are often abbreviated, which prevents reliable inference of gender and obscures role assignments within publications. The authors explicitly note that, due to these limitations, they cannot quantify gender representation or delineate author roles in the retracted works.

Establishing gender distribution and author roles would inform whether certain roles (e.g., first author) correlate with retraction trends and would contribute to ongoing discussions on gender disparities and authorship dynamics in retracted literature.