Gender-specific effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific publishing productivity: Impact and resilience

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dc.contributor.authorRyan, M.
dc.contributor.authorTuke, J.
dc.contributor.authorHutchinson, M.R.
dc.contributor.authorSpencer, S.J.
dc.date.issued2023
dc.descriptionAvailable online 3 February 2023
dc.description.abstractRationale: The SARS-CoV2 pandemic led to drastic social restrictions globally. Early data suggest that women in science have been more adversely affected by these lockdowns than men, with relatively fewer scientific articles authored by women. However, these observations test broad populations with many potential causes of disparity. Australia presents a natural experimental condition where several states of similar demographics and disease impact had differing approaches in their social isolation strategies. The state of Victoria experienced 280 days of lockdowns from 2020 to 2021, whereas the comparable state of New South Wales experienced 107 days, most of these in 2021, and other states even fewer restrictions. Objective and methods: To assess how the gender balance changed in Australian biomedical publishing with the lockdowns, we created a custom workflow to analyse PubMed data from more than 120,000 published articles submitted in 2019–2021 from Australian authors. Results: Broadly, Australian women have been incredibly resilient to the challenges faced by the lockdowns. There was an increase in the number of published articles submitted in 2020 that was equally due to women as men, including from Victoria. On the other hand, articles specifically addressing COVID-19 were significantly less likely to be authored by women than those on other topics, a finding not likely due to particular gender imbalance in virology or viral epidemiology, since publications on HIV followed similar patterns to previous years. By 2021, this imbalance had reversed, with more COVID-19-related papers authored by women than men. Conclusions: These data suggest women from Victoria were less able to rapidly transition to new research early in the pandemic but had accommodated to the new conditions by 2021. This work indicates we need strategies to support women in science as the pandemic continues and to continue to monitor the situation for its impact on vulnerable groups.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityM. Ryan, J. Tuke, M.R. Hutchinson, S.J. Spencer
dc.identifier.citationSocial Science and Medicine, 2023; 320:115761-1-115761-9
dc.identifier.doi10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115761
dc.identifier.issn0277-9536
dc.identifier.issn1873-5347
dc.identifier.orcidRyan, M. [0000-0003-2373-4384]
dc.identifier.orcidTuke, J. [0000-0002-1688-8951]
dc.identifier.orcidHutchinson, M.R. [0000-0003-2154-5950]
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/137886
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherElsevier
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/1128646
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT180100565
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/CE140100003
dc.rights© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/ 4.0/).
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115761
dc.subjectCOVID-19; Female; Gender; Productivity; Publishing; R; SARS-CoV2; Women
dc.subject.meshHumans
dc.subject.meshRNA, Viral
dc.subject.meshCommunicable Disease Control
dc.subject.meshPublishing
dc.subject.meshVictoria
dc.subject.meshFemale
dc.subject.meshMale
dc.subject.meshCOVID-19
dc.subject.meshSARS-CoV-2
dc.titleGender-specific effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific publishing productivity: Impact and resilience
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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