ArticlePloS one2021
Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 230 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Who Agrees to Review a Manuscript inEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Compliance with existing standards: overview comparing Cochrane with non-Cochrane living systematic reviews.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Mind the Gap: The Journey of Skull Base Specialties Toward Gender Parity.Journal of neurological surgery. Part B, Skull base · 2025Article
- Examining gender and ethnic disparities in scientific authorship to promote a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion at a university school of public health.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Twenty years of infectious disease dynamics research: gender and race imbalances in publication and citation practices.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- How COVID-19 affected academic publishing: a 3-year study of 17 million research papers.International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Immediate and longer-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific productivity in ecology and evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Examining how a documentary film can serve as an intervention to shift attitudes and behaviours around sexism in STEM.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Messing with Merton: The intersection between open science practices and Mertonian values.Accountability in research · 2024Article
- Article
- Peer review trends in six fisheries science journals.Research integrity and peer review · 2024Article
- COVID-19 pandemic & neurosciences in India- the CoINstudy: Impact of the pandemic on research related to the neurosciences.The Indian journal of medical research · 2024Article
- Evaluation of Culture Conducive to Academic Success by Gender at a Comprehensive Cancer Center.The oncologist · 2024Article
- "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research activities: A survey of the largest Italian academic community".PloS one · 2024Article
- Brazilian authorship gender trends on academic surgery: a bigdata analysis.Acta cirurgica brasileira · 2024Article
- Time to Publication in Medical Education Journals: An Analysis of Publication Timelines During COVID-19 (2019-2022).Perspectives on medical education · 2024Article
- Distribution of Female and Male First and Last Authorship across Drug Delivery Related Journals with Respect to Year and Journal Impact Factor.Molecular pharmaceutics · 2023Article
- The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender gap in research productivity within academia.eLife · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.