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Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19

Publications are essential for a successful academic career, and there is evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing gender disparities in the publishing process. We used longitudinal publication data on 431,207 authors in four disciplines - basic medicine, biology, chemistry and cli...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Madsen, Emil Bargmann, Nielsen, Mathias Wullum, Bjørnholm, Josefine, Jagsi, Reshma, Andersen, Jens Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942470/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35293860
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76559
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author Madsen, Emil Bargmann
Nielsen, Mathias Wullum
Bjørnholm, Josefine
Jagsi, Reshma
Andersen, Jens Peter
author_facet Madsen, Emil Bargmann
Nielsen, Mathias Wullum
Bjørnholm, Josefine
Jagsi, Reshma
Andersen, Jens Peter
author_sort Madsen, Emil Bargmann
collection PubMed
description Publications are essential for a successful academic career, and there is evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing gender disparities in the publishing process. We used longitudinal publication data on 431,207 authors in four disciplines - basic medicine, biology, chemistry and clinical medicine - to quantify the differential impact of COVID-19 on the annual publishing rates of men and women. In a difference-in-differences analysis, we estimated that the average gender difference in publication productivity increased from –0.26 in 2019 to –0.35 in 2020; this corresponds to the output of women being 17% lower than the output of men in 2109, and 24% lower in 2020. An age-group comparison showed a widening gender gap for both early-career and mid-career scientists. The increasing gender gap was most pronounced among highly productive authors and in biology and clinical medicine. Our study demonstrates the importance of reinforcing institutional commitments to diversity through policies that support the inclusion and retention of women in research.
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spelling pubmed-89424702022-03-24 Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19 Madsen, Emil Bargmann Nielsen, Mathias Wullum Bjørnholm, Josefine Jagsi, Reshma Andersen, Jens Peter eLife Computational and Systems Biology Publications are essential for a successful academic career, and there is evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing gender disparities in the publishing process. We used longitudinal publication data on 431,207 authors in four disciplines - basic medicine, biology, chemistry and clinical medicine - to quantify the differential impact of COVID-19 on the annual publishing rates of men and women. In a difference-in-differences analysis, we estimated that the average gender difference in publication productivity increased from –0.26 in 2019 to –0.35 in 2020; this corresponds to the output of women being 17% lower than the output of men in 2109, and 24% lower in 2020. An age-group comparison showed a widening gender gap for both early-career and mid-career scientists. The increasing gender gap was most pronounced among highly productive authors and in biology and clinical medicine. Our study demonstrates the importance of reinforcing institutional commitments to diversity through policies that support the inclusion and retention of women in research. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8942470/ /pubmed/35293860 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76559 Text en © 2022, Madsen et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Computational and Systems Biology
Madsen, Emil Bargmann
Nielsen, Mathias Wullum
Bjørnholm, Josefine
Jagsi, Reshma
Andersen, Jens Peter
Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title_full Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title_fullStr Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title_short Author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during COVID-19
title_sort author-level data confirm the widening gender gap in publishing rates during covid-19
topic Computational and Systems Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942470/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35293860
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76559
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