Research and Scholarship During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Innovations in MENA Survey Research in the Age of COVID (Pre-Recorded)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our expectations, personal lives, and professional careers in unprecedented ways. As the virus spread, it exposed existing structural and gender inequalities while further deepening others; academia is no exception. In this paper, we shed light on the differential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on male and female academics as well as the short- and long-term effects of the ongoing health crisis on further deepening the existing gender gap in academia. We rely on qualitative interviews with female scholars in the MENA region combined with recent survey data with academics from across the globe to offer insights into the gendered impact of the pandemic on scholars’ research productivity and career paths. We find significant gender variations when it comes to research productivity during the pandemic; female scholars are spending significantly more time on online teaching, service, and care responsibilities while devoting less hours to research and submitting work for publication. These disparities are most evident among female scholars with young children. These findings have long-term implications that should be taken seriously by higher-education institutions that tend to apply “male” measures of success for tenure and promotion.

Authors

• Gail Buttorff, University of Houston

• Marwa Shalaby, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Nermin Allam, Rutgers University