Background:A commonly used metric for evaluating academic success, the number of published articles, focuses on processes that select against female academics. Novel social conditions induced by COVID-19 pandemic likely exacerbated this gender-bias if female academics took on the load of caregiving, domestic, service and teaching roles. We investigate the pandemic effect on the gender gap in research productivity through a systematic review and meta-analysis of published articles across scientific disciplines.Methods:We identified 50 relevant articles with 115 effect sizes that measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-specific research productivity, commonly as the number of submitted/published articles (n=97). We conducted a meta-analysis to 1) investigate the effect of the pandemic on the gender gap in research productivity within academia and 2) test hypotheses on how research field, breadth of gender gap before the pandemic, and authorship position influence this effect.Results:Overall, the gender gap in research productivity within academia has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to before, especially in social sciences and medicine, fields that were previously nearest to being gender equal. We did not detect an influence of authorship position on the effect.Conclusions:We detected that gender biases favouring the productivity and perceived impact of men in academia overall strengthened during the pandemic. We encourage academic and funding institutions to consider a range of different metrics to evaluate academic impact, and to further acknowledge and accommodate individual circumstances.
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