We study the disproportionate impact of the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak on female and male academics' research productivity in social science. The lockdown has caused substantial disruptions to academic activities, requiring people to work from home. How this disruption affects productivity and the related gender equity is an important operations and societal question. We collect data from the largest open-access preprint repository for social science on 41,858 research preprints in 18 disciplines produced by 76,832 authors across 25 countries over a span of two years. We use a difference-in-differences approach leveraging the exogenous pandemic shock. Our results indicate that, in the 10 weeks after the lockdown in the United States, although the total research productivity increased by 35%, female academics' productivity dropped by 13.9% relative to that of male academics. We also show that several disciplines drive such gender inequality. Finally, we find that this intensified productivity gap is more pronounced for academics in top-ranked universities, and the effect exists in six other countries. Our work points out the fairness issue in productivity caused by the lockdown, a finding that universities will find helpful when evaluating faculty productivity. It also helps organizations realize the potential unintended consequences that can arise from telecommuting.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间研究生产力中的性别不平等

我们研究了因 COVID-19 爆发而导致的封锁对女性和男性学者在社会科学领域的研究生产力的不成比例影响。封锁对学术活动造成了严重干扰，要求人们在家工作。这种破坏如何影响生产力和相关的性别平等是一个重要的运营和社会问题。我们从最大的社会科学开放存取预印本资料库收集数据，涉及 18 个学科的 41,858 份研究预印本，由 25 个国家/地区的 76,832 位作者在两年内制作。我们使用差异中的差异方法来利用外源性大流行冲击。我们的结果表明，在美国封锁后的 10 周内，尽管总研究生产力提高了 35%，但女性学者的 与男性学者相比，生产力下降了 13.9%。我们还表明，有几个学科推动了这种性别不平等。最后，我们发现这种加剧的生产力差距对于一流大学的学者更为明显，并且这种影响存在于其他六个国家。我们的工作指出了封锁造成的生产力公平问题，这一发现将有助于大学在评估教师生产力时有所帮助。它还可以帮助组织意识到远程办公可能产生的潜在意外后果。我们的工作指出了封锁造成的生产力公平问题，这一发现将有助于大学在评估教师生产力时有所帮助。它还可以帮助组织意识到远程办公可能产生的潜在意外后果。我们的工作指出了封锁造成的生产力公平问题，这一发现将有助于大学在评估教师生产力时有所帮助。它还可以帮助组织意识到远程办公可能产生的潜在意外后果。