IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0257919.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals

Author

Listed:
  • Flaminio Squazzoni
  • Giangiacomo Bravo
  • Francisco Grimaldo
  • Daniel García-Costa
  • Mike Farjam
  • Bahar Mehmani

Abstract

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unusually high submission rate of scholarly articles. Given that most academics were forced to work from home, the competing demands for familial duties may have penalized the scientific productivity of women. To test this hypothesis, we looked at submitted manuscripts and peer review activities for all Elsevier journals between February and May 2018-2020, including data on over 5 million authors and referees. Results showed that during the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics. The rate of the peer-review invitation acceptance showed a less pronounced gender pattern with women taking on a greater service responsibility for journals, except for health & medicine, the field where the impact of COVID-19 research has been more prominent. Our findings suggest that the first wave of the pandemic has created potentially cumulative advantages for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Flaminio Squazzoni & Giangiacomo Bravo & Francisco Grimaldo & Daniel García-Costa & Mike Farjam & Bahar Mehmani, 2021. "Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-17, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0257919
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257919
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257919
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257919&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0257919?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam Palayew & Ole Norgaard & Kelly Safreed-Harmon & Tue Helms Andersen & Lauge Neimann Rasmussen & Jeffrey V. Lazarus, 2020. "Pandemic publishing poses a new COVID-19 challenge," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(7), pages 666-669, July.
    2. Oriol Aspachs & Ruben Durante & Alberto Graziano & Josep Mestres & Marta Reynal-Querol & Jose G Montalvo, 2021. "Tracking the impact of COVID-19 on economic inequality at high frequency," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-14, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bratanova, Alexandra, 2023. "Analysis of Australian business and research specialisation in antimicrobial resistance technology," MPRA Paper 118699, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Barbara Poggio, 2022. "Working for Gender Equality in the Neoliberal Academia: Between Theory and Practice," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 26(sup2022), pages 220014-2200.
    3. Marta Jiménez Carrillo & Unai Martín & Amaia Bacigalupe, 2023. "Gender Inequalities in Publications about COVID-19 in Spain: Authorship and Sex-Disaggregated Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-10, January.
    4. Kwon, Eunrang & Yun, Jinhyuk & Kang, Jeong-han, 2023. "The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gendered research productivity and its correlates," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    5. Ryan, M. & Tuke, J. & Hutchinson, M.R. & Spencer, S.J., 2023. "Gender-specific effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on scientific publishing productivity: Impact and resilience," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    6. Horbach, Serge P.J.M. & Schneider, Jesper W. & Sainte-Marie, Maxime, 2022. "Ungendered writing: Writing styles are unlikely to account for gender differences in funding rates in the natural and technical sciences," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    7. Andrijana Perković Paloš & Antonija Mijatović & Ivan Buljan & Daniel Garcia-Costa & Elena Álvarez-García & Francisco Grimaldo & Ana Marušić, 2023. "Linguistic and semantic characteristics of articles and peer review reports in Social Sciences and Medical and Health Sciences: analysis of articles published in Open Research Central," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4707-4729, August.
    8. Constantin Bürgi & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2022. "The influence of Covid-19 on publications in economics: bibliometric evidence from five working paper series," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5175-5189, September.
    9. Ji-Young Son & Michelle L. Bell, 2022. "Scientific authorship by gender: trends before and during a global pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Chantal Remery & Richard J. Petts & Joop Schippers & Mara A. Yerkes, 2022. "Gender and employment: Recalibrating women's position in work, organizations, and society in times of COVID‐19," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1927-1934, November.

    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. Guillaume Cabanac & Theodora Oikonomidi & Isabelle Boutron, 2021. "Day-to-day discovery of preprint–publication links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5285-5304, June.
    2. Anna Walaszczyk & Małgorzata Koszewska & Iwona Staniec, 2022. "Food Traceability as an Element of Sustainable Consumption—Pandemic-Driven Changes in Consumer Attitudes," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Angelo Capodici & Aurelia Salussolia & Francesco Sanmarchi & Davide Gori & Davide Golinelli, 2023. "Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4881-4913, October.
    4. E. Sachini & K. Sioumalas-Christodoulou & C. Chrysomallidis & G. Siganos & N. Bouras & N. Karampekios, 2021. "COVID-19 enabled co-authoring networks: a country-case analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 5225-5244, June.
    5. Török, Ádám & Konka, Boglárka & Nagy, Andrea Magda, 2023. "A koronavírus-járvány a közgazdasági szakirodalomban. Egy új határterület tudománymetriai elemzése [The coronavirus pandemic in the economics literature. The scientometric analysis of a new discipl," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 284-304.
    6. Yao, Xuan & Xu, Zeshui & Škare, Marinko & Wang, Xindi, 2024. "Aftermath on COVID-19 technological and socioeconomic changes: A meta-analytic review," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    7. Lucas Rodriguez Forti & Luiz A. Solino & Judit K. Szabo, 2021. "Trade-off between urgency and reduced editorial capacity affect publication speed in ecological and medical journals during 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Aspachs, Oriol & Graziano, Alberto & Mestres, Josep & Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2024. "Spending response to cash transfers to shield households from inflation: Evidence from bank accounts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    9. Guillaume Cabanac & Ingo Frommholz & Philipp Mayr, 2020. "Scholarly literature mining with information retrieval and natural language processing: Preface," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2835-2840, December.
    10. Piluca Alvargonzález & Marina Gómez & Carmen Martínez-Carrascal & Myroslav Pidkuyko & Ernesto Villanueva, 2022. "Analysis of labor flows and consumption in Spain during COVID-19," Occasional Papers 2202, Banco de España.
    11. Sathyanarayanan Doraiswamy & Anupama Jithesh & Ravinder Mamtani & Amit Abraham & Sohaila Cheema, 2021. "Telehealth Use in Geriatrics Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Scoping Review and Evidence Synthesis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-17, February.
    12. , Aisdl, 2020. "Let’s Do Better: Public Representations of COVID-19 Science," OSF Preprints 3cpvs, Center for Open Science.
    13. Archanskaia, Elizaveta & Canton, Erik & Hobza, Alexandr & Nikolov, Plamen & Simons, Wouter, 2023. "The asymmetric impact of COVID-19: A novel approach to quantifying financial distress across industries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Jian Gao & Yian Yin & Kyle R. Myers & Karim R. Lakhani & Dashun Wang, 2021. "Potentially long-lasting effects of the pandemic on scientists," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-6, December.
    15. Trenton Taros & Christopher Zoppo & Nathan Yee & Jack Hanna & Christine MacGinnis, 2023. "Retracted Covid-19 articles: significantly more cited than other articles within their journal of origin," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2935-2943, May.
    16. Müller, Fernanda Maria & Santos, Samuel Solgon & Righi, Marcelo Brutti, 2023. "A description of the COVID-19 outbreak role in financial risk forecasting," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    17. Luisa Corrado & Daniela Fantozzi & Simona Giglioli, 2022. "Real-time ineuqalities and policies during the pandemic in the US," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1396, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    18. Caron, Laura & Tiongson, Erwin R., 2022. "Households in Transit: COVID-19 and the Changing Measurement of Welfare," IZA Discussion Papers 15670, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. 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.
    20. Das, Upasak & Biswas, Shreya, 2023. "Fuelling down after a lockdown: Effects of the first COVID wave on clean fuel usage in India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0257919. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.