Women researchers are publishing less since the pandemic hit. What can their employers do to help?
As Covid-19 has shuttered schools across the globe, leaving parents to pick up childcare responsibilities, a handful of studies have converged on the same grim picture: Women in academic science and medicine are publishing far less since the pandemic hit.
Two studies published in May looked at preprint servers and found that women in life and medical sciences aren’t seeing the same gains in publishing compared to their male peers since the pandemic started. Another analysis, which was published in a preprint server and looked specifically at Covid-19 papers published by U.S. researchers, found that first authorship among women declined 23% compared to papers published in the same journals last year.
