Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Domain ranking · 2021
Social Sciences journal rankings 2021
6,458 ranked journals · Domain
Social Sciences has 6,458 ranked journals in 2021. The median OJR fell 0.07 on 2020 to 1.09, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.01. The top three are The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Academy of Management Annals, and Turkic Languages.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Fields in Social Sciences (6)
Up to All journals6,458 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1The Quarterly Journal of EconomicsOxford University Press · United States | 16.37Q1 | 19.54 0.55 up from 2020 | 121 | 58% | $7,619 | ||
2Academy of Management AnnalsRoutledge · United States | 15.60Q1 | 21.47 3.23 up from 2020 | 81 | 30% | — | ||
3Turkic LanguagesHarrassowitz Publishing House · Germany | 15.38Q1 | 8.33 7.90 up from 2020 | 39 | 2% | — | ||
4International SecurityThe MIT Press · United States | 13.60Q1 | 11.94 2.90 up from 2020 | 77 | 42% | — | ||
5International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 13.00Q1 | 27.03 10.68 up from 2020 | 514 | 48% | $3,990 | ||
6The Review of Asset Pricing StudiesOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 12.66Q1 | 21.94 19.19 up from 2020 | 44 | 40% | $4,028 | ||
7The Journal of Economic PerspectivesOAAmerican Economic Association · United States | 12.55Q1 | 15.58 2.65 up from 2020 | 139 | 100% | — | ||
8California Management ReviewSAGE Publishing · United States | 12.29Q1 | 20.36 2.80 up from 2020 | 79 | 20% | $3,900 | ||
9American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.13Q1 | 18.22 3.65 up from 2020 | 128 | 35% | $3,900 | ||
10Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological ScienceOASAGE Publishing · United States | 12.11Q1 | 23.37 2.97 down from 2020 | 106 | 100% | $2,000 | ||
11Tourism GeographiesTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 11.90Q1 | 16.04 12.01 up from 2020 | 225 | 29% | — | ||
12Government Information QuarterlyElsevier BV · United States | 11.84Q1 | 13.35 3.09 up from 2020 | 211 | 52% | $4,360 | ||
13Journal of Educational Technology SystemsSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 11.08Q1 | 26.80 24.50 up from 2020 | 81 | 20% | $3,400 | ||
14The Journal of Strategic Information SystemsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 11.03Q1 | 21.43 7.40 up from 2020 | 66 | 35% | $4,160 | ||
15American Economic ReviewAmerican Economic Association · United States | 10.66Q1 | 14.98 1.45 up from 2020 | 381 | 42% | — | ||
16The Review of Corporate Finance StudiesOxford University Press · United States | 10.59Q1 | 14.80 12.35 up from 2020 | 51 | 43% | $4,028 | ||
17Journal of International Business PolicyPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 10.46Q1 | 10.95 0.16 down from 2020 | 70 | 84% | $3,190 | ||
| 10.46Q1 | 14.80 13.07 up from 2020 | 47 | 100% | — | |||
19Contemporary Security PolicyTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 10.41Q1 | 12.83 10.13 up from 2020 | 77 | 58% | — | ||
20The Internet and Higher EducationElsevier BV · United States | 10.10Q1 | 14.31 2.77 up from 2020 | 72 | 31% | $4,120 | ||
21International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher EducationOASpringer Nature · Switzerland | 9.84Q1 | 16.03 5.22 up from 2020 | 148 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
22Educational PsychologistRoutledge · United States | 9.78Q1 | 11.80 2.49 down from 2020 | 61 | 32% | — | ||
23American Political Science ReviewCambridge University Press · United States | 9.66Q1 | 8.88 0.59 down from 2020 | 267 | 62% | $3,550 | ||
24Journal of Second Language WritingElsevier BV · United States | 9.56Q1 | 6.13 0.98 up from 2020 | 103 | 13% | $3,830 | ||
25Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.52Q1 | 13.65 1.91 up from 2020 | 605 | 45% | $4,690 | ||
26Policy and SocietyOAElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 9.48Q1 | 14.19 8.83 up from 2020 | 85 | 100% | $1,634 | ||
27Research on Language and Social InteractionTaylor & Francis · United States | 9.31Q1 | 5.35 4.02 down from 2020 | 70 | 45% | — | ||
28European Business ReviewEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 9.29Q1 | 4.44 6.69 down from 2020 | 154 | 38% | — | ||
29Journal of Business VenturingElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.21Q1 | 11.87 0.85 down from 2020 | 158 | 37% | $4,130 | ||
30European Journal of Teacher EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 9.21Q1 | 10.96 7.77 up from 2020 | 190 | 53% | — | ||
31Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.20Q1 | 12.51 2.93 up from 2020 | 105 | 39% | $5,400 | ||
32Review of Research in EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.18Q1 | 12.31 2.45 up from 2020 | 45 | 31% | $2,500 | ||
33Pedagogical ResearchOALectito Journals · United Kingdom | 8.89Q1 | 17.08 16.08 up from 2020 | 75 | 100% | — | ||
34Journal of Innovation & KnowledgeOAElsevier BV · Spain | 8.83Q1 | 16.49 8.18 up from 2020 | 84 | 100% | $2,200 | ||
35European Journal of Political ResearchOAWiley · United Kingdom | 8.75Q1 | 7.17 1.23 up from 2020 | 170 | 73% | $3,550 | ||
36Human Behavior and Emerging TechnologiesOAWiley · United States | 8.72Q1 | 16.87 10.99 up from 2020 | 111 | 56% | $840 | ||
37Journal of democracyJohns Hopkins University Press · United States | 8.69Q1 | 6.27 0.30 up from 2020 | 210 | 21% | — | ||
38JAMAAmerican Medical Association · United States | 8.57Q1 | 28.55 15.69 up from 2020 | 3,573 | 34% | — | ||
39Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOAPublisher not listed | 8.54Q1 | 5.16 0.31 up from 2020 | 267 | 100% | — | ||
| 8.49Q1 | 18.92 17.38 up from 2020 | 84 | 56% | $2,900 | |||
41Information and OrganizationElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 8.42Q1 | 8.97 1.26 down from 2020 | 47 | 60% | $3,590 | ||
42American Journal of Political ScienceWiley · United States | 8.41Q1 | 6.50 2.15 down from 2020 | 231 | 33% | $4,100 | ||
43Business HorizonsElsevier BV · United States | 8.17Q1 | 11.54 1.86 up from 2020 | 251 | 23% | $3,410 | ||
44Modern Language JournalWiley · United States | 8.05Q1 | 7.96 1.01 up from 2020 | 159 | 29% | $3,800 | ||
45Annals of Tourism ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 7.98Q1 | 11.76 4.57 up from 2020 | 502 | 61% | $4,060 | ||
46Journal of Sustainable TourismTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 7.94Q1 | 13.19 5.13 up from 2020 | 438 | 40% | — | ||
47ProspectsSpringer Science+Business Media | 7.90Q1 | 13.20 12.58 up from 2020 | 85 | 84% | $3,190 | ||
48Secularism and NonreligionOAUbiquity Press · United Kingdom | 7.79Q1 | 0.89 0.58 down from 2020 | 30 | 100% | $490 | ||
49Journal of the Academy of Marketing ScienceSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 7.79Q1 | 17.26 7.26 up from 2020 | 170 | 58% | $4,790 | ||
50Computers & EducationElsevier BV · United States | 7.78Q1 | 17.33 4.38 up from 2020 | 680 | 34% | $5,190 |
Fields of Social Sciences, compared.
- Social Sciences3,141
- Psychology1,032
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance851
- Business, Management and Accounting728
- Arts and Humanities518
- Decision Sciences188
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
1,653 additional Social Sciences journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 6,458
- Window papers (baseline)
- 3,755,807 +17.0% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 1.09 -6.2% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 301
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 2,933 | 3,074 | 3,257 | 3,421 | 3,551 | 3,684 | 3,847 | 4,034 | 4,222 | 4,411 | 4,638 | 4,858 | 5,103 | 5,326 | 5,550 | 5,769 | 5,975 | 6,155 | 6,251 | 6,310 | 6,367 | 6,458 | 6,516 | 6,519 | 6,456 | 6,382 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 973,082 | 1,101,576 | 1,187,966 | 1,289,835 | 1,324,068 | 1,431,668 | 1,541,994 | 1,678,086 | 1,825,065 | 1,985,403 | 2,148,912 | 2,303,999 | 2,468,040 | 2,603,480 | 2,734,303 | 2,869,634 | 3,018,278 | 3,128,445 | 3,209,329 | 3,319,936 | 3,489,326 | 3,755,807 | 4,010,665 | 4,149,019 | 4,247,103 | 4,426,831 | |
| Median OJR | 0.81 | 0.86 | 0.88 | 0.92 | 0.96 | 1.0001 | 1.063 | 1.14 | 1.196 | 1.22 | 1.242 | 1.25 | 1.26 | 1.241 | 1.236 | 1.204 | 1.179 | 1.181 | 1.165 | 1.183 | 1.158 | 1.09 | 1.067 | 1.057 | 1.065 | 1.08 |
| Measure | Category statistic | Eligible population |
|---|---|---|
| Journal self-citation share | Median: 4.6% | 4,027 journals |
| Retracted papers per 1,000 | Pooled rate: 1.605 per 1,000 | 3,404 journals |
| Output growth | Median: -2.2% | 5,924 journals |
| Open access share | Median: 56.3% | 6,382 journals |
| Listed APC (USD) | Median including $0 listed prices: $3,390 | 2,626 ranked journals with a known listed price, including $0 listed prices |
| International collaboration share | Median: 20.9% | 5,817 journals |
| Review share | Median: 0.0% | 6,382 journals |
| Articles-only OJR | Median: 1.12 | 6,330 journals |
| Uncited share | Median: 42.6% | 6,382 journals |
| Citation concentration | Median: 49.1% | 6,369 journals |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.