The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates

Kwon, Eunrang; Yun, Jinhyuk; Kang, Jeong‐han

doi:10.1016/j.joi.2023.101380

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…Although this difference did not reach statistical significance (Chi Square p=.012), it supports several other studies which note a general decline in female first-authorship across scientific fields in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (23,24). The pandemic disproportionately affected female scientists due to difficulties securing childcare (23), and it's possible that our observed trend was a product of this phenomena.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Mattoon,

Miles,

Broderick

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The practice of designating two or more authors as equal contributors (EC) on a scientific publication is increasingly common as a form of sharing credit. However, EC authors are often unclearly attributed on CVs or citation engines, and it is unclear how research teams determine author order within an EC listing. In response to studies showing that male authors were more likely to be placed first in an EC listing, the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) required that authors explain the reasons for author order beginning in 2020. In this study we analyze data from over 2500 ASM publications to see how this policy affected gender bias and how research teams are making decisions on author order. Data on publications from 2018-2021 show that gender bias was largely nonsignificant both before and after authors were asked by ASM to provide an EC statement. The most likely reasons for EC order included alphabetical order, seniority, and chance, although there were differences for publications from different geographic regions. However, many research teams used unique methods in order selection, highlighting the importance of EC statements to provide clarity for readers, funding agencies, and tenure committees.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Mattoon,

Miles,

Broderick

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this regard, we noted a slight but noticeable increase in publications with males in the first-author position after the requirement of written explanations in 2020. Although this difference did not reach statistical significance ( χ 2 P = 0.012), it supports several other studies that note a general decline in female-first authorship across scientific fields in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic ( 23 , 24 ). The pandemic disproportionately affected female scientists due to difficulties securing childcare ( 23 ), and it is possible that our observed trend was a product of this phenomenon.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 68%

Analysis of justification for author order and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Mattoon,

Miles,

Broderick

et al. 2024

mBio

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The practice of designating two or more authors as equal contributors (ECs) on a scientific publication is increasingly common as a form of sharing credit. However, EC authors are often unclearly attributed on curriculum vitae (CVs) or citation engines, and it is unclear how research teams determine author order within an EC listing. In response to studies showing that male authors were more likely to be placed first in an EC listing, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) required that authors explain the reasons for author order beginning in 2020. In this study, we analyze data from over 2,500 ASM publications to see how this policy affected gender bias and how research teams are making decisions on author order. Data on publications from 2018 to 2021 show that gender bias was largely nonsignificant both before and after authors were asked by ASM to provide an EC statement. The most likely reasons for EC order included alphabetical order, seniority, and chance, although there were differences for publications from different geographic regions. However, many research teams used unique methods in order selection, highlighting the importance of EC statements to provide clarity for readers, funding agencies, and tenure committees. IMPORTANCE First-author publications are important for early career scientists to secure funding and educational opportunities. However, an analysis published in eLife in 2019 noted that female authors are more likely to be placed second even when both authors report they have contributed equally. American Society for Microbiology announced in response that they would require submissions to include a written justification of author order. In this paper, we analyze the resultant data and show that laboratories are most likely to use some combination of alphabetical order, seniority, and chance to determine author order. However, the prevalence of these methods varies based on the research team's geographic location. These findings highlight the importance of equal contributor statements to provide clarity for readers, funding agencies, and tenure committees. Furthermore, this work is critically important for understanding how these decisions are made and provides a glimpse of the sociology of science.

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“…Both men and women faculty spend a similar amount of time each week on paid work, but women devote less time to research (Misra, Lundquist, and Templer 2012). Additionally, women's productivity was disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (King and Frederickson 2021;Kwon, Yun, and Kang 2023).…”

Section: What Is Known About Authorshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Authors Social Science? Demographics and the Production of Knowledge

Lockhart,

King,

Munsch

2024

Social Currents

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Author demographics are of key epistemic importance in science—shaping the approaches to and contents of research—especially in social scientific knowledge production, yet we know very little about who produces social scientific publications. We fielded an original demographic survey of nearly 20,000 sociology, economics, and communication authors in the Web of Science from 2016–2020. Our results include not only details about gender and race/ethnicity but also the first descriptive statistics on social science authors’ sexuality, disability, parental education, and employment characteristics. We find authorship in the social sciences looks very different from other measures of disciplinary membership like who holds PhDs or faculty positions. For example, half of the authors in each discipline’s journals say that they are not a member of the discipline in which they published. Moreover, social science authors are considerably less diverse than other measures of disciplinary membership. In sociology, women constitute a majority of PhDs, faculty, and American Sociological Association members; by contrast, men make up a majority of sociology’s authors. Additionally, we include a wide array of descriptive statistics across a range of demographic characteristics, which will be of interest to inequality scholars, science scholars, and social scientists engaged in diversifying their disciplines.

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The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates

Cited by 15 publications

References 61 publications

Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Analysis of justification for and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Analysis of justification for author order and gender bias in author order among those contributing equally

Who Authors Social Science? Demographics and the Production of Knowledge

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