Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Sep 13;17(9):e0274278. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274278. eCollection 2022.
Early research on the impact of COVID-19 on academic scientists suggests that disruptions to research, teaching, and daily work life are not experienced equally. However, this work has overwhelmingly focused on experiences of women and parents, with limited attention to the disproportionate impact on academic work by race, disability status, sexual identity, first-generation status, and academic career stage. Using a stratified random survey sample of early-career academics in four science disciplines (N = 3,277), we investigated socio-demographic and career stage differences in the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic along seven work outcomes: changes in four work areas (research progress, workload, concern about career advancement, support from mentors) and work disruptions due to three COVID-19 related life challenges (physical health, mental health, and caretaking). Our analyses examined patterns across career stages as well as separately for doctoral students and for postdocs/assistant professors. Overall, our results indicate that scientists from marginalized (i.e., devalued) and minoritized (i.e., underrepresented) groups across early career stages reported more negative work outcomes as a result of COVID-19. However, there were notable patterns of differences depending on the socio-demographic identities examined. Those with a physical or mental disability were negatively impacted on all seven work outcomes. Women, primary caregivers, underrepresented racial minorities, sexual minorities, and first-generation scholars reported more negative experiences across several outcomes such as increased disruptions due to physical health symptoms and additional caretaking compared to more privileged counterparts. Doctoral students reported more work disruptions from life challenges than other early-career scholars, especially those related to health problems, while assistant professors reported more negative changes in areas such as decreased research progress and increased workload. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately harmed work outcomes for minoritized and marginalized early-career scholars. Institutional interventions are required to address these inequalities in an effort to retain diverse cohorts in academic science.
早期关于 COVID-19 对学术科学家影响的研究表明，研究、教学和日常工作生活的中断并非均等体验。然而，这项工作主要集中在女性和家长的经历上，对种族、残疾状况、性认同、第一代身份和学术职业阶段等因素对学术工作的不成比例影响关注有限。我们使用四个科学学科的早期职业学者分层随机调查样本（N=3277），研究了 COVID-19 大流行对七种工作结果的影响在社会人口统计学和职业阶段上的差异：四个工作领域（研究进展、工作量、对职业发展的关注、导师支持）的变化，以及由于三个与 COVID-19 相关的生活挑战（身体健康、心理健康和照护）而导致的工作中断。我们的分析考察了整个职业阶段以及博士生和博士后/助理教授两个群体的模式。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，处于早期职业阶段的来自边缘化（即被低估）和少数群体（即代表性不足）的科学家由于 COVID-19，报告了更多负面的工作结果。然而，根据所检查的社会人口统计学特征，存在显著的差异模式。身体或精神残疾者在所有七个工作结果上都受到负面影响。女性、主要照顾者、代表性不足的少数族裔、性少数群体和第一代学者在几个结果上报告了更多的负面经历，例如由于身体健康症状和额外的照顾而导致的工作中断增加，与更有特权的同行相比。与其他早期职业学者相比，博士生报告了更多因生活挑战导致的工作中断，尤其是与健康问题相关的中断，而助理教授报告了更多研究进展减少和工作量增加等领域的负面变化。这些发现表明，COVID-19 大流行对代表性不足和边缘化的早期职业学者的工作结果造成了不成比例的伤害。需要采取机构干预措施来解决这些不平等问题，以努力在学术科学中保留多样化的学者群体。
