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Mind the gender gap: COVID-19 lockdown effects on gender differences in preprint submissions.
Ucar, Iñaki; Torre, Margarita; Elías, Antonio.
  • Ucar I; UC3M-Santander Big Data Institute, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Getafe, Spain.
  • Torre M; Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Getafe, Spain.
  • Elías A; OASYS group, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
PLoS One ; 17(3): e0264265, 2022.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1854998
ABSTRACT
The gender gap is a well-known problem in academia and, despite its gradual narrowing, recent estimations indicate that it will persist for decades. Short-term descriptive studies suggest that this gap may have actually worsened during the months of confinement following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In this work, we evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on female and male academics' research productivity using preprint drop-off data. We examine a total of 307,902 unique research articles deposited in 5 major preprint repositories during the period between January and May each year from 2017 to 2020. We find that the proportion of female authors in online repositories steadily increased over time; however, the trend reversed during the confinement and gender parity worsened in two respects. First, the proportion of male authors in preprints increased significantly during lockdown. Second, the proportion of male authors in COVID-19-related articles was significantly higher than that of women. Overall, our results imply that the gender gap in academia suffered an approximately 1-year setback during the strict lockdown months of 2020, and COVID-related research areas suffered an additional 1.5-year setback.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Publications / Authorship / Quarantine / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study Limits: Female / Humans / Male Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0264265

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Publications / Authorship / Quarantine / COVID-19 Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study Limits: Female / Humans / Male Language: English Journal: PLoS One Journal subject: Science / Medicine Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: Journal.pone.0264265