COVID-19 medical papers have fewer women first authors than expected

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in school closures and distancing requirements that have disrupted both work and family life for many. Concerns exist that these disruptions caused by the pandemic may not have influenced men and women researchers equally. Many medical journals have published papers on the pandemic, which were generated by researchers facing the challenges of these disruptions. Here we report the results of an analysis that compared the gender distribution of authors on 1893 medical papers related to the pandemic with that on papers published in the same journals in 2019, for papers with first authors and last authors from the United States. Using mixed-effects regression models, we estimated that the proportion of COVID-19 papers with a woman first author was 19% lower than that for papers published in the same journals in 2019, while our comparisons for last authors and overall proportion of women authors per paper were inconclusive. A closer examination suggested that women’s representation as first authors of COVID-19 research was particularly low for papers published in March and April 2020. Our findings are consistent with the idea that the research productivity of women, especially early-career women, has been affected more than the research productivity of men.

Gender Equity Considerations for Tenure and Promotion during COVID‐19

“…(2020) and Andersen et al. (2020)—quite clearly demonstrates the differential impact of gender on academic productivity during COVID‐19.…”

“…Lastly, in the field of medicine, Andersen et al. (2020) analyze the proportion of women publishing papers dedicated to the COVID‐19 pandemic in medical journals and find that the proportion of papers with a woman first author during this period was 19 percent lower than for papers published in the same journals in 2019.…”

The Gender of COVID-19 Experts in Newspaper Articles: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

“…These ndings support anecdotal reports that women academics have been underrepresented in newspaper coverage and evidence-based data demonstrating the exclusion of women from academic publication and leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. [1][2][3][4] The proportion of women experts cited in newspaper articles about the COVID-19 pandemic is greater than previous studies of the representation of women in news media. In a 2008 study of UK newspapers, only 16% of all quoted scientists were female.…”

“…Anecdotal reports of the impact of increased barriers for women academics due to COVID-19 1 have been supported by evidence of a decrease in publications for women academics since the pandemic began. 2,3 Further, women are underrepresented in pandemic decision-making and leadership roles. 4 Altogether, this growing evidence highlights that women academics are being excluded from key opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Ten simple rules for women principal investigators during a pandemic

“…However, if scientific fields are seeing increased output due to time focused on writing/computer-based tasks (e.g., publication submission, patent applications, and grant proposals), all indications suggest that this has been a benefit for men in science, and not women [ 2 – 4 ]. Discussions of these data have focused primarily on the fact that women do a disproportionate amount of house and childcare [ 5 – 7 ], and options used to provide support for this unpaid work have essentially evaporated (e.g., limiting outside workers into the home for cleaning, day cares not accessible to children of nonessential workers, and school and summer camp closures).…”