Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals

Abstract

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unusually high submission rate of scholarly articles. Given that most academics were forced to work from home, the competing demands for familial duties may have penalized the scientific productivity of women. To test this hypothesis, we looked at submitted manuscripts and peer review activities for all Elsevier journals between February and May 2018-2020, including data on over 5 million authors and referees. Results showed that during the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics. The rate of the peer-review invitation acceptance showed a less pronounced gender pattern with women taking on a greater service responsibility for journals, except for health & medicine, the field where the impact of COVID-19 research has been more prominent. Our findings suggest that the first wave of the pandemic has created potentially cumulative advantages for men.

The Voices of Medical Education Science: Describing the Published Landscape

“…4,12 While these results are encouraging, future work should continue to monitor this trend, especially in relation to the impact of COVID-19. Research conducted to date suggests a downward trend in female authors' productivity, [31][32][33][34] especially for those with young dependents and those in the early stages of their career. 35 For example, an analysis of over 40,000 articles published before and during COVID-19 indicated a widening gender gap of 14% percentage points for all authorship positions; that number increased to 24.6% when considering the first author position.…”

Elevating the impact of conservation physiology by building a community devoted to excellence, transparency, ethics, integrity and mutual respect

“…A reduced emphasis on publication quantity could have other benefits, such as helping to level the playing field where many early-career scientists are disadvantaged relative to their peers in cases where English is a second language or when demographic groups are required to absorb an oversize burden in the face of hardships (e.g. early-career female professionals dropping out of the workforce in higher numbers than their male counterparts as a consequence of COVID-19; Squazzoni et al , 2021 ). The reasons for hyper-productivity are varied and some individuals and laboratory groups will produce more science than others (which is fine…run your own race), but at the end of the day quality and impact should always be prioritized over quantity.…”

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“…Globally, the pandemic affected classroom teaching in up to 98% of higher education institutions, with distance learning replacing classroom teaching in most, and has affected research in up to 80% of higher education institutions, especially due to the cancellation or postponement of international travel and scientific conferences (Marinoni et al, 2020). At the same time, women have reported more declines in article submissions and research productivity when compared to men (King & Frederickson, 2021;Krukowski et al, 2021;Squazzoni et al, 2021), and have been disproportionately burdened by childcare responsibilities when working from home (Krukowski et al, 2021;Manzo & Minello, 2020). Doctoral candidates and early career researchers, of all genders, have experienced negative impacts on their careers due to their limited ability to engage in research activities such as data collection and research dissemination, and the uncertainty introduced in research funding and employment contracts (Byrom, 2020).…”