| Abstract: |
Academia provides a valuable case study for evaluating the effects of social
forces on workplace productivity, using a concrete measure of output: the
scholarly paper. Many academics -- especially women -- have experienced
unprecedented challenges to scholarly productivity with the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we analyze the gender composition of over
450,000 authorships of scholarly preprints in the preprint repositories arXiv
and bioRxiv from before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis
reveals that the underrepresentation of women scientists in the prestige last
authorship position necessary for retention and promotion is only getting more
inequitable. We find differences between the arXiv and bioRxiv repositories in
how gender affects first, middle, and sole authorship submission rates before
and during the pandemic. In a second contribution, we review existing research
and theory that could explain the mechanisms behind this widening gender gap
in productivity during COVID-19. Finally, we aggregate recommendations for
institutional change that could help ameliorate challenges to women's
productivity during the pandemic and beyond. |