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COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time

Stay-at-home-orders, online learning, and work from home policies are some of the responses governments, universities, and other institutions adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, research shows these measures have increased pre-existing gender disparities in the workplace. The working co...

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Autores principales: Caldarulo, Mattia, Olsen, Jared, Frandell, Ashlee, Islam, Shaika, Johnson, Timothy P., Feeney, Mary K., Michalegko, Lesley, Welch, Eric W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9269954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35802718
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271089
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author Caldarulo, Mattia
Olsen, Jared
Frandell, Ashlee
Islam, Shaika
Johnson, Timothy P.
Feeney, Mary K.
Michalegko, Lesley
Welch, Eric W.
author_facet Caldarulo, Mattia
Olsen, Jared
Frandell, Ashlee
Islam, Shaika
Johnson, Timothy P.
Feeney, Mary K.
Michalegko, Lesley
Welch, Eric W.
author_sort Caldarulo, Mattia
collection PubMed
description Stay-at-home-orders, online learning, and work from home policies are some of the responses governments, universities, and other institutions adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, research shows these measures have increased pre-existing gender disparities in the workplace. The working conditions for women during the pandemic worsened due to increased family care responsibilities and unequal distribution of domestic labor. In the academy, working from home has resulted in reduced research time and increased teaching and family care responsibilities, with a larger proportion of that burden falling to women. We investigate the persistence of gender inequity among academic scientists resulting from university COVID-19 responses over time. We draw on two surveys administered in May 2020 and May 2021 to university-based biologists, biochemists, and civil and environmental engineers, to analyze how the pandemic response has disproportionately impacted women in academia and the endurance of those inequities. Results show significantly greater negative impacts from the pandemic on women’s research activities and work-life balance, compared to men. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results, and the need for the academy to better predict and adjust to the gender disparities its policies create.
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spelling pubmed-92699542022-07-09 COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time Caldarulo, Mattia Olsen, Jared Frandell, Ashlee Islam, Shaika Johnson, Timothy P. Feeney, Mary K. Michalegko, Lesley Welch, Eric W. PLoS One Research Article Stay-at-home-orders, online learning, and work from home policies are some of the responses governments, universities, and other institutions adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, research shows these measures have increased pre-existing gender disparities in the workplace. The working conditions for women during the pandemic worsened due to increased family care responsibilities and unequal distribution of domestic labor. In the academy, working from home has resulted in reduced research time and increased teaching and family care responsibilities, with a larger proportion of that burden falling to women. We investigate the persistence of gender inequity among academic scientists resulting from university COVID-19 responses over time. We draw on two surveys administered in May 2020 and May 2021 to university-based biologists, biochemists, and civil and environmental engineers, to analyze how the pandemic response has disproportionately impacted women in academia and the endurance of those inequities. Results show significantly greater negative impacts from the pandemic on women’s research activities and work-life balance, compared to men. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results, and the need for the academy to better predict and adjust to the gender disparities its policies create. Public Library of Science 2022-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9269954/ /pubmed/35802718 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271089 Text en © 2022 Caldarulo et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Caldarulo, Mattia
Olsen, Jared
Frandell, Ashlee
Islam, Shaika
Johnson, Timothy P.
Feeney, Mary K.
Michalegko, Lesley
Welch, Eric W.
COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title_full COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title_fullStr COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title_short COVID-19 and gender inequity in science: Consistent harm over time
title_sort covid-19 and gender inequity in science: consistent harm over time
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9269954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35802718
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271089
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