The Effect of COVID-19 on AGU Journal Authors by Gender and Geographical
Location
Abstract
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced institutions to close their physical
spaces, many researchers and professors were required to work from home.
Media outlets and individuals wondered if women specifically would be
shouldering the childcare and/or homeschooling responsibilities,
decreasing the time they had for professional activities. Preliminary
analyses show mixed results: some have seen decreased submissions from
women (Vincent-Lamarre et al., 2020; Del Boca et al., 2020), with at
least one other showing an increase in submissions from women (Dolan &
Lawless, 2020); and another suggests the rate of male-athored
submissions to preprint archives are growing faster than those from
women (Frederickson 2020). AGU has been monitoring our monthly
submission data to understand how the pandemic and stay-at home orders
are affecting our submissions from specific demographics—based on
author gender, age, and country. Our analysis finds that the pandemic so
far has not resulted in a decrease in submissions to AGU journals; nor
has there so far been a decrease in the participation of women as
submitting authors. Instead, we have seen an increase in submissions
from most author groups compared to year-to-date numbers in previous
years.