IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28360.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

COVID-19 Disruptions Disproportionately Affect Female Academics

Author

Listed:
  • Tatyana Deryugina
  • Olga Shurchkov
  • Jenna E. Stearns

Abstract

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent countermeasures, such as school closures, the shift to working from home, and social distancing are disrupting economic activity around the world. As with other major economic shocks, there are winners and losers, leading to increased inequality across certain groups. In this project, we investigate the effects of COVID-19 disruptions on the gender gap in academia. We administer a global survey to a broad range of academics across various disciplines to collect nuanced data on the respondents’ circumstances, such as a spouse’s employment, the number and ages of children, and time use. We find that female academics, particularly those who have children, report a disproportionate reduction in time dedicated to research relative to what comparable men and women without children experience. Both men and women report substantial increases in childcare and housework burdens, but women experienced significantly larger increases than men did.

Suggested Citation

  • Tatyana Deryugina & Olga Shurchkov & Jenna E. Stearns, 2021. "COVID-19 Disruptions Disproportionately Affect Female Academics," NBER Working Papers 28360, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28360
    Note: LS PE PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28360.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kyle R. Myers & Wei Yang Tham & Yian Yin & Nina Cohodes & Jerry G. Thursby & Marie C. Thursby & Peter Schiffer & Joseph T. Walsh & Karim R. Lakhani & Dashun Wang, 2020. "Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientists," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(9), pages 880-883, September.
    2. Heather Antecol & Kelly Bedard & Jenna Stearns, 2018. "Equal but Inequitable: Who Benefits from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2420-2441, September.
    3. Luke Holman & Devi Stuart-Fox & Cindy E Hauser, 2018. "The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-20, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wenxuan Shi & Renli Wu, 2024. "Women’s strength in science: exploring the influence of female participation on research impact and innovation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(7), pages 4529-4551, July.
    2. Brad M. Barber & Wei Jiang & Adair Morse & Manju Puri & Heather Tookes & Ingrid M. Werner, 2021. "What Explains Differences in Finance Research Productivity during the Pandemic?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(4), pages 1655-1697, August.
    3. Nakajima, Kazuki & Liu, Ruodan & Shudo, Kazuyuki & Masuda, Naoki, 2023. "Quantifying gender imbalance in East Asian academia: Research career and citation practice," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    4. King, Molly M. & Frederickson, Megan, 2020. "The Pandemic Penalty: The gendered effects of COVID-19 on scientific productivity," SocArXiv 8hp7m, Center for Open Science.
    5. Biondi, Beatrice & Barrett, Christopher B. & Mazzocchi, Mario & Ando, Amy & Harvey, David & Mallory, Mindy, 2021. "Journal submissions, review and editorial decision patterns during initial COVID-19 restrictions," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    6. Stephanie Rennane & Hannah Acheson-Field & Kathryn A Edwards & Grace Gahlon & Melanie A Zaber, 2022. "Leak or link? the overrepresentation of women in non-tenure-track academic positions in STEM," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-15, June.
    7. Rebecca A. Krukowski & Loneke T. Blackman Carr & Danielle Arigo, 2022. "Pandemic-Related Tenure Timeline Extensions in Higher Education in the United States: Prevalence and Associated Characteristics," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-11, July.
    8. Walters, Cyrill & Mehl, Graeme G. & Piraino, Patrizio & Jansen, Jonathan D. & Kriger, Samantha, 2022. "The impact of the pandemic-enforced lockdown on the scholarly productivity of women academics in South Africa," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(1).
    9. Magdalena Gil & Constanza Hurtado-Acuna & Máximo Quiero-Bastías & Marigen Narea & Alejandra Caqueo-Urízar, 2023. "Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on researchers: evidence from Chile and Colombia," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
    10. Masso, Jaan & Meriküll, Jaanika & Roosaar, Liis & Rõigas, Kärt & Paas, Tiiu, 2025. "What determines the gender pay gap in academia?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    11. Lin Zhang & Yuanyuan Shang & Ying Huang & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2022. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on publons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 145-179, January.
    12. Benjamin Bennett & Isil Erel & Léa H. Stern & Zexi Wang, 2020. "Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 27788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kai Li & Xiang Zheng & Chaoqun Ni, 2025. "Gender disparities in the STEM research enterprise in China," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    14. Albanesi, Stefania & Olivetti, Claudia & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2022. "Families, labor markets and policy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118038, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Da Ke, 2021. "Who Wears the Pants? Gender Identity Norms and Intrahousehold Financial Decision‐Making," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1389-1425, June.
    16. Ursprung, Heinrich, 2019. "Endogenous maternity allowances as exemplified by academic promotion standards," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-11.
    17. Sarah Shandera & Jes L Matsick & David R Hunter & Louis Leblond, 2021. "RASE: Modeling cumulative disadvantage due to marginalized group status in academia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-20, December.
    18. Gabriela Fontanarrosa & Lucía Zarbá & Valeria Aschero & Daniel Andrés Dos Santos & María Gabriela Nuñez Montellano & Maia C Plaza Behr & Natalia Schroeder & Silvia Beatriz Lomáscolo & María Elisa Fanj, 2024. "Over twenty years of publications in Ecology: Over-contribution of women reveals a new dimension of gender bias," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(9), pages 1-18, September.
    19. Ewa Małgorzata Szepietowska & Ewa Zawadzka & Sara Filipiak, 2022. "Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Sense of Gains and Losses during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An International Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-19, March.
    20. Ourania Tzoraki & Svetlana Dimitrova & Marin Barzakov & Saad Yaseen & Vasilis Gavalas & Hani Harb & Abas Haidari & Brian P. Cahill & Alexandra Ćulibrk & Ekaterini Nikolarea & Eleni Andrianopulu & Miro, 2021. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Working Conditions, Employment, Career Development and Well-Being of Refugee Researchers," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-13, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.