The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) / Chapter Skim
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For academic STEMM, the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ranged from delayed experiments in individual laboratories to transformed or canceled global scientific conferences. People shifted classes to virtual platforms and negotiated with family members for space in their homes from which to work.
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; and personal characteristics, including family structure, caregiving responsibilities, and behavioral health status. Developing a comprehensive understanding of the nuanced ways these disruptions have manifested may help the academic community emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic ready to mitigate any long-term negative consequences the COVID-19 pandemic might have on the continued advancement of women in the academic STEMM workforce.
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Each chapter provides key insights about how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the careers of women in academic STEMM fields in 2020, approaching this core concept from different disciplinary perspectives. Chapter 2 sets the stage for the ensuing chapters and presents the results of a survey conducted in October 2020, providing a window into the very personal perspectives offered by respondents;1 Chapters 3 through 7 review literature and concepts established before the COVID-19 pandemic, summarize the preliminary evidence and data on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 from the perspective of that field, and -- where possible -- speculate about potential long-term implications.
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It has led to school closures, shifting caregiving responsibilities onto parents and guardians, which has disproportionately negative outcomes for women across all sectors. Within STEMM, collaborations have been disrupted, career progressions have been paused, and women are facing challenges associated with gendered effects of remote work conflicting with caregiving responsibilities.
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and increased isolation may also negatively impact productivity; harm the recruitment, retention, and persistence of women in STEMM; and/or affect mental well-being. Women faculty in STEMM faced unique challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic related to juggling growing second shift challenges juxtaposed with increased boundary permeability, rising workloads, and persistent ideal worker cultures.
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Professional conferences adapted quickly to virtual platforms, allowing global participation and often increasing access by removing travel-related barriers that can affect women more than men, given their caregiving responsibilities. Taken together -- positive and negative -- it is important to identify and illuminate the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected and will affect women in academic STEMM for years to come.
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A complete review lies beyond the scope of this report, but it is important to recognize that these events and activities were occurring and absorbing resources of administrators and faculty -- particularly Faculty of Color -- concurrently with the COVID-19 pandemic. The devastating economic recession not only affected women in STEMM at postsecondary institutions directly, as they felt the consequences of policies such as furloughs, hiring freezes, and elimination of merit increases, but also indirectly as women were forced out of the workforce at a higher rate than men and were more likely to report the need to leave the workforce if their children's school systems did not have in-person classes in the fall of 2020 (FRB, 2020; Heggeness, 2020)
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This report, however, was motivated by and focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the Promising Practices report, the committee provides findings based on the preliminary evidence available during 2020 and identifies questions to create a research agenda about short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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They are presented either as Established Research and Experiences from Previous Events or Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic during 2020 that parallel the topics as presented in the report. Established Research and Experiences from Previous Events Finding 1 Women's Representation in STEMM: Leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the representation of women has slowly increased in STEMM fields, from acquiring Ph.D.s to holding leadership positions, but with caveats to these limited steps of progress; for example, women representation in leadership positions tends to be at institutions with less prestige and fewer resources.
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Preliminary evidence from 2020 suggests women in academic STEMM are experiencing increased workload, decreased productivity, changes in interactions, and difficulties from remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated disruptions. Combined with the gendered division of nonemployment labor that affected women before the pandemic, these challenges have been ampli fied, as demonstrated by a lack of access to childcare, children's
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Fast decisions greatly affected contingent and nontenured faculty members -- positions that are more often occupied by women and People of Color. In 2020, these financial decisions already had negative, short-term effects and may portend long-term consequences (see Chapter 6)
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The research questions represent areas the committee identified for future research, rather than specific recommendations. They are presented in six categories that parallel that chapters of the report: Cross-Cutting Themes; Academic Productivity and Institutional Responses; Work-Life Boundaries and Gendered Divisions of Labor; Collaboration, Networking, and Professional Societies; Academic Leadership and Decision-Making; and Mental Health and Well-being.
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