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The Pandemic and Gender Inequality in Academia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2021

Eunji Kim Open the ORCID record for Eunji Kim [Opens in a new window]  and
Shawn Patterson Jr. Open the ORCID record for Shawn Patterson Jr. [Opens in a new window]
Eunji Kim
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, USA
Shawn Patterson Jr.
Affiliation:
Southern Oregon University, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Has the pandemic exacerbated gender inequality in academia? We provide real- time evidence by analyzing 1.8 million tweets from approximately 3,000 political scientists, leveraging their use of social media for career advancement. Using automated text analysis and difference-in-differences estimation, we find that although faculty members of both genders were affected by the pandemic, the shift to remote work caused women to tweet less often than their male colleagues about professional accomplishments. We argue that these effects are driven by the increased familial obligations placed on women, as demonstrated by the increase in family-related tweets and the more pronounced effects among junior academics. Our evidence demonstrating the gendered shift in professional visibility during the pandemic provides the opportunity for proactive efforts to address disparities that otherwise may take years to manifest.

Type
Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 109 - 116
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Supplementary material: Link

Kim and Patterson Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IDCU63
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Kim and Patterson supplementary material

Kim and Patterson supplementary material

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