Social Sciences

#4 of 26

Editorial board composition

81,244
Positions
71,632
Editors
1,951
Journals
148
Countries
15.5
Mean h-index

Social Sciences ranks #4 among 26 fields. 81,244 positions across 1,951 journals. 71,632 editors. 43.9% female (above avg 33.7%). Mean h-index: 15.5 (below avg 22.7).

Gender distribution

Male
31,805
Female
24,854
Androgynous
2,457
Unknown
12,516

43.9% female · 56.1% male (of 56,659 resolved; global avg 33.7%)

Each editor counted once at this entity (composite identity key). Gender is inferred from the first name — not self-reported — and coverage drops for non-Latin-script names, which inflates the "unknown" bar in some countries.

Top countries

United States
25.9% 18,535
United Kingdom
9.3% 6,679
Australia
3.8% 2,710
Canada
2.9% 2,042
China
2.8% 1,979
Germany
2.2% 1,547
Italy
1.7% 1,201
The Netherlands
1.6% 1,141
India
1.3% 967
Spain
1.2% 860

Board diversity

Per-editor diversity indicators. Each editor is counted once (composite identity key). The Shannon columns use Pielou's normalisation J = H / ln(k) so values are comparable across entities with different numbers of categories. See the methodology for full definitions, use cases, and references (Shannon 1948; Pielou 1966; Jost 2006).

0.563
Pielou's J over ROR country distribution. 0 = all editors from one country, 1 = perfectly even across every country present. MDPI sits higher than Elsevier here; compare against the top-countries bar to see which countries drive the spread.
0.119
Pielou's J over the ROR org_type field (education, healthcare, facility, government, nonprofit, company, archive). Low values mean editors come overwhelmingly from one kind of institution — usually universities, which account for about 82% of editors dataset-wide. Higher values indicate editorial boards that reach into clinical practice, public labs, industry, or scientific societies.
25 yr
Median years since first OpenAlex-indexed publication, per unique editor. IQR 15–40 yr (spread 25 yr), mean 31 yr, n = 42,642. A low median with a small IQR indicates a board clustered in one career stage; a large IQR signals generational mix.