Paying the price? Academic work and parenting during COVID-19

Introduction: The shift to remote working/learning to slow transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has had widespread mental health impacts. We aimed to describe how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the mental health of students and faculty within a health sciences faculty at a central Canadian university. Methods: Via an online survey, we queried mental health in the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic quantitatively (scale: 1 (most negative)-100 (most positive)) and qualitatively. Results: The sample (n = 110) was predominantly women (faculty 39/59; [66.1%]; students 46/50; [92.0%]). Most faculty were married/common law (50/60; [84.8%]) and had children at home (36/60; [60.0%]); the opposite was true for most students. Faculty and students self-reported comparable mental health (40.47±24.26 and 37.62±26.13; respectively). Amongst women, those with vs. without children at home, reported significantly worse mental health impacts (31.78±23.68 vs. 44.29±27.98; respectively, p = 0.032). Qualitative themes included: “Sharing resources,” “spending money,” “few changes,” for those without children at home; “working at home can be isolating,” including the subtheme, “balancing act”: “working in isolation,” “working more,” for those with children at home. Discussion: Amongst women in academia, including both students and faculty, those with children at home have disproportionately worse mental health than those without children at home.

“Working at Home and Living at Work, but....”

Due to the pandemic, online education has made trouble for students regarding access, academic performance, motivation, and remote work difficulties for instructors. In this study, the experiences of working from home and online education of women in academia in Turkey will be understood and explored. The qualitative research method, namely in-depth interviews, was used to acquire detailed knowledge about the issue. The similarities and/or differences of the experiences were discussed according to the three main profiles that emerged. While unmarried women have benefited from this process and increased their professional activities, married women with children were seen as the most disadvantaged group in work-life balance, home conditions, and professional careers.

Towards women-inclusive ecology: Representation, behavior, and perception of women at an international conference

Conferences are ideal platforms for studying gender gaps in science because they are important cultural events that reflect barriers to women in academia. Here, we explored women’s participation in ecology conferences by analyzing female representation, behavior, and personal experience at the 1st Meeting of the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL). The conference had 722 attendees, 576 contributions, and 27 scientific sessions. The gender of attendees and presenters was balanced (48/52% women/men), yet only 29% of the contributions had a woman as last author. Moreover, men presented most of the keynote talks (67%) and convened most of the sessions. Our results also showed that only 32% of the questions were asked by women, yet the number of questions raised by women increased when the speaker or the convener was a woman. Finally, the post-conference survey revealed that attendees had a good experience and did not perceive the event as a threatening context for women. Yet, differences in the responses between genders suggest that women tended to have a worse experience than their male counterparts. Although our results showed clear gender biases, most of the participants of the conference failed to detect it. Overall, we highlight the challenge of increasing women’s scientific leadership, visibility and interaction in scientific conferences and we suggest several recommendations for creating inclusive meetings, thereby promoting equal opportunities for all participants.

The Women’s Leadership Gap in Diabetes: A Call for Equity and Excellence. Diabetes 2021;70:1623–1633

Recently, a series of articles on women’s leadership in diabetes, which reflects the gender disparity in academic medicine, was published in Diabetes (1–3), centered around the article by Dunne et al. (1). The underrepresentation of female talent in the field of clinical medicine has been a longstanding and well-established issue. Women in academia are disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of first author and senior author publications, representation on editorial boards of journals, and leadership roles within academic societies (4). Different strategies that enable leadership development and remove barriers have been proposed to attract and retain female talent (3).

Work-Life Integration in Academia: From Myth to Reality

Work-life integration is often considered the stuff of myth, especially for women in academia. The inherent conflict between an identity as a mother or parent and that as a working professional effectively limits diversity efforts in STEM. Addressing this conflict is therefore crucial to creating a more inclusive academic environment. Work-life integration has two fundamental components—structural and cultural. Workplace polices need to enable attainment of work and life goals; at the same time, the work culture is important in assuring individuals take advantage of existing policies. In this chapter, we review several work-life integration interventions at UC Davis, including the Partner Opportunity Program and Capital Resource Network. We discuss the challenges associated with these and other efforts during the implementation of our ADVANCE programs. We also make recommendations for improving work-life integration in academia and beyond—to turn myth into reality.

Dissertation Data Collection During a Global Pandemic: Barking Dogs, Crying Babies, and Feminist Social Work

COVID-19 has had a profound impact on our society. Research evidence has surfaced that there is a gender disparity in research productivity due to COVID-19. Notably, women in academia have been less productive in terms of academic publications since the beginning of the pandemic, likely due to the day-to-day responsibilities of childcare and domestic work; and according to pre-print literature, women of color may be more significantly impacted. As a woman of color, PhD candidate, mother of a toddler, wife, advocate for mental wellness, researcher, and social worker, reflecting on these recent articles was quite disheartening. Additionally, the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on doctoral students has had detrimental impacts on our ability to collect data we need to forge our paths through this academic journey. This in-brief paper is written in response to the numerous questions I have been asked by other doctoral students around how I collected 41 in-depth, semi-structured interviews while working from home during a global pandemic, with my toddler at home with me. I reflect on how I pivoted to recruit participants, scheduled interviews, and conducted interviews from home, and how I believe COVID-19 has created space for a more accessible qualitative data gathering experience.

The Influence of COVID-19 Lockdown on Women in the Academy in One Rural University in South Africa

The primary objective of this study was to examine, interrogate and establish the influence of COVID-19 lockdown on the well-being of women in the academy and the roles they play as university employees and family members. This study was premised within interpretivism paradigm, and life history; and diaristic approach was used to understand this phenomenon. Biographies and interviews qualitative techniques were used to collect data from six women in academia in one university in South Africa. The research findings identified the COVID-19 pandemic as a cause of anxiety and restlessness among academic women; the excessive workload and lack of time; difficulties in balancing home and work duties; a lack of access to proper resources to aid job duties and research; and a lack of online resources-data, network access and Blackboard. This study recommended adequate online facilities and the design of the virtual mental wellness programmes to help academic women.

Women’s Safety Concerns and Academia: How Safety Concerns Can Create Opportunity Gaps

The present work documents the safety concerns of men and women in academia and how these concerns can create opportunity gaps. Across five samples including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty ( N = 1,812), women reported greater concerns about their safety than did men, and these concerns were associated with reduced work hours in libraries, offices, and/or labs afterhours. Additionally, although we were unable to manipulate safety concerns among women, in an experiment with men ( N = 117), increasing safety concerns decreased willingness to use the library afterhours. Finally, in an archival study of swipe access data ( N = 350,364 swipes), a crime event that made safety concerns salient for women was associated with a decreased likelihood that women worked in their office afterhours and a decreased likelihood that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics women worked in their labs later at night. Collectively, these data suggest that women’s safety concerns can restrict their work.