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Researching gender inequalities in academic labor during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Avoiding common problems and asking different questions

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  • Maria do Mar Pereira

Abstract

As the COVID‐19 pandemic unfolds, a growing body of international literature is analyzing the effects of the pandemic on academic labor and, specifically, on gender inequalities in academia. In that literature, much attention has been devoted to comparing the unequal impacts of COVID‐19 on the research activities of women and men, with studies demonstrating that women's research productivity has been disproportionately disrupted, in ways that are likely to have detrimental effects in the short‐ and long‐term. In this paper, I discuss that emerging literature on gender inequalities in pandemic academic productivity. I reflect on the questions asked, the issues centered and the assumptions made within this literature, devoting particular attention to how authors conceptualize academic labor and productivity, on one hand, and gender, on the other. I show that this literature makes major contributions to exposing old and new gender inequalities in academia, but argue that it also risks reproducing some problematic assumptions about gender and about academic work. Discussing those assumptions and their effects, I identify some important questions for us to consider as we expand this literature and deepen our understanding of the complex gendered effects of COVID‐19 on academic labor.

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  • Maria do Mar Pereira, 2021. "Researching gender inequalities in academic labor during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Avoiding common problems and asking different questions," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 498-509, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:s2:p:498-509
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12618
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    13. Batsheva Guy & Brittany Arthur, 2020. "Academic motherhood during COVID‐19: Navigating our dual roles as educators and mothers," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 887-899, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Vera-Gajardo, 2021. "Belonging and Masculinities: Proposal of a Conceptual Framework to Study the Reasons behind the Gender Gap in Engineering," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-14, October.
    2. Thais França & Filipa Godinho & Beatriz Padilla & Mara Vicente & Lígia Amâncio & Ana Fernandes, 2023. "“Having a family is the new normal”: Parenting in neoliberal academia during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 35-51, January.
    3. Emmanouela Mandalaki & Noortje van Amsterdam & Ajnesh Prasad & Marianna Fotaki, 2022. "Caring about the unequal effects of the pandemic: What feminist theory, art, and activism can teach us," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1224-1235, July.
    4. Humera Manzoor, 2023. "A personal reflection of risking and protecting lives during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 86-93, January.

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