| Abstract: |
We investigate the impact of new research opportunities on the long-standing
under-representation of women in medical and academic leadership by assessing
the impact of the emergence of COVID-19 as a new research topic in the life
sciences on women's authorship. After collecting publication data from 2019
and 2020 on biomedical publications, where the position of first and last
author is most important for future career development, we use the major
Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms to identify the main research area of
each publication and measure the relation of each paper to COVID-19. Using a
Difference-in-Difference approach, we find that although the general female
authorship trend is upwards, papers in areas related to COVID-19 are less
likely to have a woman as first or last author compared to research areas not
related to COVID-19. Conversely, new publication opportunities in the COVID-19
research field increase the proportion of women in middle, less-relevant,
author positions. Stay-at-home mandates, journal importance, and access to new
funds do not fully explain the drop in women's outcomes. The decline in female
first authorship is related to the increase of teams in which both lead
authors have no prior experience in the COVID-related research field. In
addition, pre-existing publishing teams show reduced bias in female key
authorship with respect to new teams specifically formed for COVID-related
research. This suggests that opportunistic teams, transitioning into research
areas with emerging interests, possess greater flexibility in choosing the
primary and final authors, potentially reducing uncertainties associated with
engaging in productions divergent from their past scientific experiences by
excluding women scientists from key authorship positions. |