In our latest longitudinal study published in BMJ Open (April 2021 issue) my co-authors, Dr. Carolin Lerchenmueller, Leo Schmallenbach, Prof. Dr. Anupam B. Jena and me examine whether the global COVID-19 pandemic had an effect on the gender gap in first authorships in the life sciences. By comparing the share of women first authors on publications in selected journals and research areas since the start of the pandemic to publications in the same time frame one year earlier, they found that female first authors have been under-represented in COVID-19-related research particularly at the beginning of the pandemic. The reduction in…

The pandemic likely affects men and women in science differently. In this commentary for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I share expectations about unfolding effects. I draw on studies that expose fundamental differences between men and women in relation to, for example, “stop-clock” policies and domestic responsibilities. Here, I highlight two important articles: Reshma Jagsi and colleagues: Women physician-scientists almost 2x as likely as male colleagues to have full-time employed spouse; women spent 8.5 hours more per week on domestic duties. Heather Antecol and colleagues: Gender neutral stop-clock policies in leading economics departments are associated with a 19 percentage points decrease…

Authors Lerchenmueller, Sorenson, and Jena analyze a set of over 6 million research articles in PubMed to determine how the promotion of research findings affects the attention the research receives. The article uses a set of techniques, from multivariable regression to natural language processing, to relate the positive framing of otherwise comparable research findings to differences in downstream citations. The work is published in the BMJ.  An open education contribution summarizes the findings in the New York Times  and additional analyses with a focus on career trajectories appears in the Harvard Business Review:  

We are grateful for Akiko Iwasaki acknowledging our research in outlining steps towards a more diverse science community. Importantly, evidence indicates that the metaphor of the “leaky pipeline” understates precipitous female attrition at decisive career transition points. It seems more a “gushing pipeline”.

We are proud that our research informs an important discourse on gender gaps in science at the case of the Salk Institute lawsuit, covered in the New York Times 2019.