Winners and Losers in Academic Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Is the Gender Gap Widening for Faculty?

AbstractWhile the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is altering academia dynamics, those juggling remote work and domestic demands – including childcare - have already felt the impacts on productivity. Female authors are facing a decrease in papers submission rates since the beginning of the pandemic period. The reasons for this decline in women productivity need to be further investigated. Here we show the influence of gender, parenthood and race in academics productivity during the pandemic period, based on a survey answered by 3,345 Brazilian academics from various knowledge areas and research institutions. Findings revealed that male academics - especially childless ones - were the least affected group, whereas female academics, especially Black women and mothers, were the most impacted group. This scenario will leave long-term effects on the career progression of the most affected groups. The results presented here are crucial for the development of actions and policies that aim to avoid further deepening the gender gap in science. This particular situation we are facing during the pandemic demands institutional flexibility and academia should foster the discussion about actions to benefit Black scientists and academics with families in the post-pandemic scenario.

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Gender, Race and Parenthood Impact Academic Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: From Survey to Action

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663252 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Fernanda Staniscuaski ◽

Livia Kmetzsch ◽

Rossana C. Soletti ◽

Fernanda Reichert ◽

Eugenia Zandonà ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Women ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Initial Period ◽

Career Progression ◽

Academic Productivity ◽

Remote Work ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Men And Women ◽

Female Authors

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is altering dynamics in academia, and people juggling remote work and domestic demands – including childcare – have felt impacts on their productivity. Female authors have faced a decrease in paper submission rates since the beginning of the pandemic period. The reasons for this decline in women’s productivity need to be further investigated. Here, we analyzed the influence of gender, parenthood and race on academic productivity during the pandemic period based on a survey answered by 3,345 Brazilian academics from various knowledge areas and research institutions. Productivity was assessed by the ability to submit papers as planned and to meet deadlines during the initial period of social isolation in Brazil. The findings revealed that male academics – especially those without children – are the least affected group, whereas Black women and mothers are the most impacted groups. These impacts are likely a consequence of the well-known unequal division of domestic labor between men and women, which has been exacerbated during the pandemic. Additionally, our results highlight that racism strongly persists in academia, especially against Black women. The pandemic will have long-term effects on the career progression of the most affected groups. The results presented here are crucial for the development of actions and policies that aim to avoid further deepening the gender gap in academia.

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Impact of COVID-19 on longitudinal ophthalmology authorship gender trends

Graefe s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology ◽

10.1007/s00417-021-05085-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 259 (3) ◽

pp. 733-744

Author(s):

Anne X. Nguyen ◽

Xuan-Vi Trinh ◽

Jerry Kurian ◽

Albert Y. Wu

Keyword(s):

Gender Gap ◽

Journal Impact Factor ◽

Science Research ◽

Academic Publishing ◽

Academic Productivity ◽

Research Database ◽

Female Authors ◽

Open Research ◽

Data Points ◽

Journal Impact

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic increased the gender gap in academic publishing. This study assesses COVID-19’s impact on ophthalmology gender authorship distribution and compares the gender authorship proportion of COVID-19 ophthalmology-related articles to previous ophthalmology articles. Methods This cohort study includes authors listed in all publications related to ophthalmology in the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset and CDC COVID-19 research database. Articles from 65 ophthalmology journals from January to July 2020 were selected. All previous articles published in the same journals were extracted from PubMed. Gender-API determined authors’ gender. Results Out of 119,457 COVID-19-related articles, we analyzed 528 ophthalmology-related articles written by 2518 authors. Women did not exceed 40% in any authorship positions and were most likely to be middle, first, and finally, last authors. The proportions of women in all authorship positions from the 2020 COVID-19 group (29.6% first, 31.5% middle, 22.1% last) are significantly lower compared to the predicted 2020 data points (37.4% first, 37.0% middle, 27.6% last) (p < .01). The gap between the proportion of female authors in COVID-19 ophthalmology research and the 2020 ophthalmology-predicted proportion (based on 2002–2019 data) is 6.1% for overall authors, 7.8% for first authors, and 5.5% for last and middle authors. The 2020 COVID-19 authorship group (1925 authors) was also compared to the 2019 group (33,049 authors) based on journal category (clinical/basic science research, general/subspecialty ophthalmology, journal impact factor). Conclusions COVID-19 amplified the authorship gender gap in ophthalmology. When compared to previous years, there was a greater decrease in women’s than men’s academic productivity.

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Impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown on scientific productivity and workload in Denmark: a gender analysis

10.31235/osf.io/7uvt3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Claire Francesca Meehan ◽

Ea Høg Utoft ◽

Christine Parsons ◽

Vanessa Jane Hall ◽

Mette Bendixen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Young Children ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Scientific Productivity ◽

Care Work ◽

Academic Productivity ◽

Gender Analysis ◽

Local Effects ◽

Academic Field ◽

The Impact

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown of Universities globally in the spring of 2020 appears to have had a negative impact on female academics in countries studied to date. Denmark is an exemplar country with clear legislative practices to support gender quality, and differences between men and women with regards to unpaid house and care work are less substantial than many other places. It is largely unknown whether Danish academics experienced the same level of COVID-19-related disruption to productivity and whether women, or academics with children in general experienced more serious disruption. To investigate the local effects of the lockdown in Danish academia, we (i) performed an analysis of preprints in a single academic field and (ii) surveyed academics employed at Denmark’s largest University. We found that parents with young children worked less hours per day during the lockdown than academics with older or no children and that this effect was more pronounced in women with young children. The vast majority of both male and female scholars with teaching responsibility reported more time spent on teaching. A larger proportion of junior academics felt their productivity decreased compared to senior academics. Additionally, analyses of the number self-reported submitted grants and manuscripts did not show any differences differ by gender or career level. However, the gender gap did increase during the first month of the lockdown with respect to the number of manuscripts submitted to preprint servers. This study contributes to emerging data on the impact of lockdowns on academic productivity and highlights the negative impact on parents with young children that is exacerbated in women with young children.

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