The COVID‐19 pandemic has forced many people, including those in the fields of science and engineering, to work from home. The new working environment caused by the pandemic is assumed to have a different impact on the amount of work that women and men can do from home. Particularly, if the major burden of child and other types of care is still predominantly on the shoulders of women. As such, a survey was conducted to assess the main issues that biomedical engineers, medical physicists (academics and professionals), and other similar professionals have been facing when working from home during the pandemic. A survey was created and disseminated worldwide. It originated from a committee of International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM; Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Task Group) and supported by the Union. The ethics clearance was received from Carleton University. The survey was deployed on the Survey Monkey platform and the results were analyzed using IBM SPSS software. The analyses mainly consisted of frequency of the demographic parameters and the cross‐tabulation of gender with all relevant variables describing the impact of work at home. A total of 921 responses from biomedical professions in 76 countries were received: 339 males, 573 females, and nine prefer‐not‐to‐say/other. Regarding marital/partnership status, 85% of males were married or in partnership, and 15% were single, whereas 72% of females were married or in partnership, and 26% were single. More women were working from home during the pandemic (68%) versus 50% of men. More men had access to an office at home (68%) versus 64% for women. The proportion of men spending more than 3 h on child care and schooling per day was 12%, while for women it was 22%; for household duties, 8% of men spent more than 3 h; for women, this was 12.5%. It is interesting to note that 44% of men spent between 1 and 3 h per day on household duties, while for women, it was 55%. The high number of survey responses can be considered excellent. It is interesting to note that men participate in childcare and household duties in a relatively high percentage; although this corresponds to less hours daily than for women. It is far more than can be found 2 and 3 decades ago. This may reflect the situation in the developed countries only—as majority of responses (75%) was received from these countries. It is evident that the burden of childcare and household duties will have a negative impact on the careers of women if the burden is not more similar for both sexes. It is important to recognize that a change in policies of organizations that hire them may be required to provide accommodation and compensation to minimize the negative impact on the professional status and career of men and women who work in STEM fields.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行对 STEM 领域在家中与性别相关的工作的影响——WiMPBME 工作组的报告

COVID-19 大流行迫使许多人（包括科学和工程领域的人）在家工作。据推测，由大流行引起的新工作环境对女性和男性在家中的工作量产生了不同的影响。特别是，如果儿童和其他类型的护理的主要负担仍然主要由女性承担。因此，进行了一项调查，以评估生物医学工程师、医学物理学家（学术界和专业人士）和其他类似专业人士在大流行期间在家工作时面临的主要问题。一项调查被创建并在世界范围内传播。它起源于国际医学物理与工程科学联盟（IUPESM；医学物理学和生物医学工程任务组中的女性）并得到联盟的支持。伦理许可来自卡尔顿大学。该调查部署在 Survey Monkey 平台上，并使用 IBM SPSS 软件对结果进行了分析。分析主要包括人口统计参数的频率和性别交叉表以及描述在家工作影响的所有相关变量。共收到来自 76 个国家的生物医学专业人士的 921 份回复：339 名男性、573 名女性和 9 名不愿说/其他。在婚姻/伴侣关系方面，85% 的男性已婚或同居，15% 为单身，而 72% 的女性已婚或同居，26% 为单身。在大流行期间，更多女性（68%）在家工作，而男性为 50%。更多的男性可以在家中使用办公室（68%），而女性则为 64%。男性每天花在育儿和上学上超过 3 小时的比例为 12%，而女性为 22%；对于家务，8% 的男性花费超过 3 小时；对于女性来说，这一比例为 12.5%。有趣的是，44% 的男性每天花 1 到 3 小时做家务，而女性则为 55%。大量的调查响应可以被认为是极好的。有趣的是，男性参与育儿和家务的比例相对较高；尽管这相当于每天的工作时间少于女性。它远远超过了 2 和 3 十年前的情况。这可能只反映了发达国家的情况——因为大多数回复（75%）来自这些国家。很明显，如果两性的负担不相似，育儿和家务的负担将对女性的职业产生负面影响。重要的是要认识到雇用他们的组织的政策可能需要改变，以提供住宿和补偿，以尽量减少对在 STEM 领域工作的男性和女性的专业地位和职业的负面影响。