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Rather than rebuilding what we once knew , let us be the architects of a new world .
‘ Time to act ’
Scientist-mothers hit hardest by the pandemic .
By Wade Zaglas
While many in academic circles predicted that female scientists , particularly mothers , would be disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic , the evidence has now become clear .
An article published in the journal Science , which draws together data from both surveys and studies , concludes that the “ pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities and created additional challenges for women , especially those with children , struggling to maintain their research productivity ”.
Such inequities were predicted in an opinion piece by radiation oncologist Reshma Jagso at the University of Michigan in March 2020 , but “ skeptical journal editors ” overlooked the issue and did not publish it .
And , according to a worldwide survey of 20,000 PhD holders conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research and published as a working paper , the disparities between mothers and fathers are significant . The survey , which ran between May and July last year , illuminated substantial differences in terms of hours spent on research , child care , housework and other tasks .
For instance , while both mothers and fathers spent less time on research after the pandemic took hold , mothers spent 33 per cent less time researching than fathers . At the same time , the survey found that mothers were spending nearly three more hours a day on childcare , compared to fathers , who registered a change of just under two hours per day .
The number of hours spent on household duties , too , changed during the pandemic , with both mothers and fathers spending nearly an hour more than usual on such tasks .
In February of 2020 , the Canadian Institutes of Health Research ( CIHR ) provided funding for COVID-19 research , and scientists were afforded just eight days to submit their proposals .
Despite Canada not being in lockdown at the time , female academics accounted for only 29 per cent of the proposals , roughly 7 percentage points lower when “ compared with previous comparable funding opportunities ”.
Cara Tannenbaum , scientific director of the Institute of Gender and Health at CIHR , reflected on the disappointment felt at the time :
“ As soon as we got the numbers we went , ‘ Oh my goodness , we did something wrong ,’” she said .
Two months later the agency offered a second round of COVID-19 funding , this time extending the deadline to 19 days and reducing paperwork requirements . The new strategy worked , with proposals written by women jumping to a healthier 39 per cent , Tannenbaum and her co-authors describe in their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
The logic behind the increase in proposals by women was expressed by Holly Witteman , a health researcher at Laval University .
“ I looked at the 8-day deadline and I just thought , ‘ There ’ s no way ,’” Witteman said , who has two children .
“ I can ’ t just cram in extra work by staying up late to write another grant .”
Witteman ’ s proposal was ultimately funded , which she attributes primarily to the deadline extension . However , the researcher is concerned about gender disparity repercussions flowing from the first round , in which the success rate was much higher for males than females ( 44 per cent versus 9 per cent ).
“ When you have funding , you get to do studies , and then you get to publish them , and then when you apply for more funding … you ’ re in a much better position ; it ’ s this cumulative advantage snowball that just keeps rolling ,” she said .
Robin Nelson , an anthropologist at Santa Clara University , asserts that the pandemic has made existing inequalities in many areas ( including gender ) “ stark ”. The anthropologist had her work hours cut by more than 50 per cent last year when her children were required to stay home .
In levelling the research ‘ playing field ’, so to speak , Nelson says “ we are going to have to finally start questioning business as usual in the way that we administer grants … time to tenure , all of these policies .”
A idea to address this has been proffered by Robinson Fulweiler , an ecologist at Boston University . She believes funding agencies and universities should allow scientists the opportunity to submit a COVID-19 impact statement , and that employers could be more proactive in providing the researchers with access to affordable child care .
The recommendations of Fulweiler and other scientist-mothers appeared in an opinion piece in PLOS Biology .
“ Now is the time to act ,” she and her co-authors write . “ Rather than rebuilding what we once knew , let us be the architects of a new world .”
Nelson concurs . “ I hope that COVID has … given us some space to actually think critically about what we expect of faculty and whether we can make space for faculty [ staff ] to have full lives that might involve disabilities , chronic illness , care taking of any sorts – just anything outside of work ,” she said . ■
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