Friday, December 24, 2021

How workers become seduced by the cult of 'optimal busyness'

by Joonas Rokka, Ioana Lupu, The Conversation

The consultant was on her way to a demanding client meeting when she realized she had had a miscarriage. But she did not interrupt her day. Instead, she went on to complete the meeting at her client's offices.

The woman, who works at an elite professional service firm in London, was one of the professionals we interviewed as part of our recent study of the work life of highly educated professionals.

When we began our study in 2014, we set out to investigate how workers in demanding jobs managed their work-life balance. But soon after we started the interviews, we realized we needed to revise our focus, because it became clear that our interviewees were not seeking to balance their work and private life.

Instead, we found these workers were driven by a compulsion to be busy at all times, which meant they were also willing to sacrifice their family lives in important ways.

As one of our participants told us: "You become a little bit of a junkie for a deadline and work. It's quite hard to switch off."

While a common narrative in research and the media is that people want to slow down their lifestyles these days, our findings reveal a strikingly different story.

The desire to work fewer hours among our interviewees was uncommon. Instead they were in pursuit of something else: "optimal busyness."

The quest for optimal busyness

We interviewed 81 people who work in some of the biggest consulting and law firms in London. Half of the workers were women, half were men, and nearly all of them had at least one child. All of the professionals we interviewed suffered from time famine—constantly having too little time to do what they had to do.

To deal with this problem, they were drawn toward a compelling state of busyness, one in which they felt in control of their time. We call this "optimal busyness"—an attractive, accelerated temporal experience that is difficult to achieve and maintain.

Overall, we identified three different kinds of experiences of busyness: optimal busyness, excessive busyness, and quiet time. Optimal busyness is an elating and enjoyable temporal flow in which the workers felt at their best and most productive. This buzzing feeling gave them adrenaline and positive energy, which was exciting. When they were in this state, they felt nothing could stop them, and that they could, for example, save a company from going bankrupt.

Such an attraction toward busyness can be understood as a kind of status symbol or badge of honor, a phenomenon that has been described in previous research.

But we found that this drive went far deeper than mere social signaling. The desired buzzing feeling was itself inherently addictive. One participant told us: "I love the intensity of it, usually. I get a buzz out of it, that's why I do the job that I do. I like it."

We observed the pleasurable and positive state of optimal busyness often tipped over and became excessive. In such instances, professionals' feelings of being in control of their time vanished. This is where busyness became overwhelming and sometimes depressing.

When the energizing buzz of optimal busyness continued for too long without break, it became unbearable. Connection with family was often the first casualty. One participant went on a work trip and despite promises to call her family in the evening failed to do so—for the entire week.

We observed a similar pattern in the case of quiet time—that is, when the busy work period was suddenly interrupted by downtime, or typically, a holiday period. Quiet time was experienced as something undesirable and meaningless. It also caused boredom and even depression. The thought of a slower pace at work was a source of concern. One told us:

"When I don't have deadlines I get bored. I'm much less productive because I like working on adrenaline."

As well as interviewing busy knowledge workers, we also spoke to some of their partners. One partner said:

"My wife is terrible. If she wakes up to go to toilet in the middle of the night, she checks her emails—even at 3 AM."

The conditions for optimal busyness

On one hand, workplaces produce the conditions that drive the quest for optimal busyness. We identified a number of mechanisms that did this, including unrealistic deadlines, performance metrics, time sheets, and the working culture itself—companies and peers expected everyone to be available to work at all times via their smartphones.

The firms we studied are elite institutions that hire the best university students with the highest grades. New recruits wanted to survive the impossible pressure because they knew it was the only way to get a promotion or to become an associate in the company. Busy working culture soon absorbed them and normalized unnatural working hours.

On the other hand, we found individuals themselves were also creating the conditions for optimal busyness. Some boosted their capacity to work with coffee, drugs, or physical exercise. Others went as far as isolating themselves in a hotel room so they could work without interruptions.

A common strategy was for workers to think: "This is only a short period and once I am through I will relax." For most, the relaxation never happened.

A culture of overwork

For decades, scholars have observed the persistence of long working hours, overwork, and time famine. These problems are ingrained in many professional work contexts, not only in consulting, audit or law firms.

Academia is another striking example: studies consistently show that researchers' poor mental well-being is linked to increased performance expectations, competitive ethos, and meticulous metrics that produce non-stop busyness.

Our research offers a new way of understanding this phenomenon. The quest for optimal busyness is a vicious cycle. However, until recently there has been limited research that would uncover our everyday experiences of time and how they can take a hold of us.

The individuals we studied, albeit in an arguably extreme context, were often unaware what was happening to them. Perhaps it is time for us all to reflect on how and why we are so addicted to feeling busy.

Lack of leisure: Is busyness the new status symbol?

Provided by The Conversation

Sex, taxes and COVID-19: How sex workers navigated pandemic relief efforts

by Ryan Conrad, Emma McKenna, The Conversation

Sex, taxes & COVID-19: How sex workers navigated pandemic relief efforts — Some tools of the trade for sex workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As COVID-19 forced Canadians to stay home and many stop working, people across numerous sectors were confused as to which income replacement programs they were eligible for.

Sex workers in particular—with their precarious legal status and de facto criminalization—did not seem to be accounted for in any of the programs.

Many progressive organizations and scholars pointed out that sex workers would likely be excluded from new programs like the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the revamped Employment Insurance (EI) scheme.

Both required claimants to have filed income tax in 2019 citing at least $5,000 worth of income. Due to the perception that sex workers don't file income taxes because of stigma and fear, sex worker-led emergency mutual aid funds were created across Canada.

As members of organizations implementing these kinds of emergency economic supports for sex workers ourselves, we saw firsthand the impact COVID-19 had on their economic security. However, as time passed and income replacement programs continued to evolve, we began to question the presumption that sex workers were not accessing these programs.

Our study

In collaboration with Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Educate, Resist (POWER) we secured a small grant to survey sex workers in the national capital region. We created a short bilingual survey asking sex workers about their working conditions during COVID-19, their ability to access social safety net programs (new and old) and their tax filing habits.

We launched the survey in June 2021 and received 304 completed surveys over six weeks.

A full detailed report on our findings is forthcoming, but we wanted to share some of our preliminary results as they are timely and should inform future policy. As sex workers fighting to decriminalize the industry are due back before the Supreme Court at any moment and social safety net programs continue to evolve, this information needs to be shared.

Sex workers & taxes

There is a lot of speculation about whether or not sex workers file income taxes—reasons cited are often fear of criminalization or stigma associated with working in the industry. And unfortunately, data on sex workers' tax filing habits is difficult to find.

Many researchers focus on sex workers' sexual health and physical safety, while others conflate sex work with trafficking. A quick look at POWER's own research repository illustrates this. Thankfully, there is a growing body of research on the working conditions of sex workers in Canada to which our study contributes.

Like workers in other sectors, sex workers are a heterogeneous group. Some work full-time, others part-time, or casually as gig workers. Some even operate as small business owners while others work for third parties.

Sex work was the primary source of income for 76.6 percent of our survey respondents, with 16.3 percent noting that sex work was supplementary income and seven percent reporting sex work as an occasional form of gig work.

Our data shows that of these workers, nearly 75 percent reported filing their income taxes in 2019. While not all sex workers claimed all their income from sex work, the majority of them said they did. These findings are a direct rejection of the anecdotal claims that sex workers don't file taxes.

The majority of sex workers in our study said they file their income tax regularly and it is a routine part of their business practices. Some workers note that claiming income has enabled them to access other income-related resources, including social safety net programs like social assistance and mortgage agreements.

For less than 25 percent of sex workers in this study, claiming income from sex work remains challenging. They said taxes invoke worry, fear and anxiety as many are concerned about the repercussions of filing income associated with legal and illegal activities.

Sex workers & CERB

Prior to the pandemic, 41 percent of survey respondents reported accessing social safety net programs (like EI or disability) at some point in the past. This indicates that a significant number of sex workers have successfully navigated social safety net programs at the federal and provincial levels.

Of those that did access social safety nets or new emergency relief programs between the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and the close of our survey in July 2021, respondents reported receiving one or more financial supports.

While almost half of our respondents (48.5 percent) accessed CERB at some point in the first year of the pandemic, an additional 54.5 percent experienced a period of not having any financial support. Overall, just under a quarter of respondents (23 percent) indicated they never stopped working despite the risk.

What happens next

This research shows how diverse sex workers are and how we cannot talk about them as a monolithic group. Working within a sector of the economy that is stigmatized and criminalized takes skills, savvy and nerve. How sex workers have navigated both the pandemic and relief efforts in the Ottawa-Gatineau region shows this.

As the pandemic wears on, many more sex workers will continue to access social safety nets. These workers know their rights, and they demand inclusion in future policy.Home health care workers face challenges with their own health

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Research shows household income impacts of storms, need for more equitable climate resilience planning for cities

by Jamie Loo, Illinois Institute of Technology

A new analysis of the economic impacts of Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy could help improve climate resilience planning for cities anticipating severe weather events going forward.

While many studies have examined the storms' economic impact through loss of business revenue, Illinois Institute of Technology Associate Professor of Social Science Yuri Mansury and his colleagues focused on households' income and properties by looking at which populations saw the most economic harm from the storms and why.

The lowest-income households in New Orleans, which were also predominantly African-American households, suffered the most as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Many of these households were dependent on employment in the mining industry or on capital earnings—namely, income received from owning mom-and-pop shops or owning property as landlords. Households earning less than $10,000 annually lost nearly 35 percent of their income and those earning between $10,000–$15,000 lost nearly 12 percent of their income.

In New York, it was downtown Manhattan and the highest-income households in the state that suffered the most as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Those households relied on labor income, worker's compensation and salaries, and most were employed in the financial sector. Households earning more than $150,000 annually had an income loss of about 5.8 percent. Capital income was a secondary source of income for some of the highest-earning households.

Mansury says these types of studies have important implications for economic development and climate resilience planning in cities. Diversification of income sources is important for the lowest-income households to make them less vulnerable to disruption in their livelihood following an extreme weather event. Likewise, he says affluent areas also need diversified income sources to ensure that households are not dependent on a single industry or economic sector.

"When we think about the definition of a disaster, it is a combination of a hazardous event like Katrina and the preexisting stratification and existing inequality in the economy. If a disaster hits an empty area, it's just a natural hazard. But it becomes a disaster if it hits a densely populated area," says Mansury, who notes that about 60 percent of Americans now live in coastal cities. "The trend in which we observe the relocation of Americans to coastal cities is contributing to that, and more so, for households at the bottom of the distribution, they're not able to afford more protected areas; they're more exposed."

The researchers used geographic information systems to examine patterns of economic activity that existed in New Orleans and New York in the areas that ended up underwater following the storms. Using these maps alongside United States census data in a computational model, the researchers were able to examine the earnings of households employed by the businesses affected by the storms. In doing so they were able to understand the broader picture of households' dependence on the economic sectors that were most impacted by the storms.

Mansury and his colleagues hope to ultimately understand how to mitigate future economic losses caused by extreme weather, especially among lower-income households. They are planning a follow-up study that will focus on understanding how quickly residents and households experience the economic impact of natural disasters. Salary loss is felt most quickly by people no longer receiving a paycheck because their workplace is underwater. The same applies to the property owners of businesses that are flooded.

"We want to focus on income loss that is more immediate, particularly for low-income households that have less cushion," Mansury says. "We want to be able to anticipate and come up with a mitigation plan that takes into account the speed through which the effect is transmitted to vulnerable households."

This research was published in Applied Geography.

Poverty worsened 2020 as many low-wage workers took the brunt of the economic blows

More information: Yuri Mansury et al, Structural path analysis of extreme weather events: An application to Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, Applied Geography (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102561

Provided by Illinois Institute of Technology

Workers welcome shortened work week, research study finds

by Jeff Renaud, University of Western Ontario

Municipal staff in Zorra Township are so satisfied with a four-day work week that almost three-quarters of them would like to extend the innovative experiment.

Seventy-three percent of employees say they would like to continue working a compressed schedule, Western University's Joseph Lyons and York University's Zachary Spicer told Zorra Township council in a presentation this week.

In the pilot project, staff were on the job for 10-hour days, four days a week. Some worked Monday to Thursday and others worked Tuesday to Friday, which also meant municipal offices were open longer hours, at no extra cost to taxpayers.

A post-pilot survey showed employees most appreciated how a compressed work week offered them flexibility in managing work/life balance.

Staff in the Oxford County township, population 8,138, were satisfied with their employment with Zorra before the pilot, and this satisfaction remained consistent throughout and after the pilot.

"A potential lesson here is that organizations with good culture and strong leadership are more likely to be innovative," said Lyons, director of Western's local government program and a political science professor.

"If Zorra were a bad place to work to start with, leadership would have been busy dealing with more managerial issues and wouldn't have had the support or confidence to try out something so ambitious."

The researchers noted the positive responses shouldn't be interpreted as universally translatable to every organization or circumstance: it took place entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a relatively small employee cohort of 30.

"With a pool of respondents that small, results are susceptible to small variations in responses," said Spicer, a professor at York's School of Public Policy and Administration.

The biggest concerns of the compressed work week among survey respondents revolved around working longer hours each day, which affected their ability to find childcare or manage responsibilities at home.

Fifty-two percent of respondents cited working longer hours each day while 19 percent said the compressed work week interrupted workflow.

An inability to complete work and fewer indirect interactions with supervisors and subordinates were also listed as difficulties.

Nearly half of the employees (43%) indicated they had no concerns at all with the four-day work week.

"Those working in the public sector are eager for more flexibility in their working lives as much as those in the private sector," said Spicer. "Zorra has given us a great indication that this flexibility is possible and can be managed well."

UK fintech puts staff on shorter week in health move

Provided by University of Western Ontario

Women say they do most chores, child care: AP-NORC poll

by Barbara Ortutay

When it comes to household duties such as changing diapers, handling chores and meals and managing family schedules and activities, many couples who don't have children expect that they will more or less share the work equally should they have kids one day.The reality is not quite so rosy—at least for mothers.

A new poll from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that although women generally expect to do more in their household, Americans without children are still more optimistic that they would share responsibilities equally with a partner compared with what parents report actually happens. That's true even when factors such as the age of respondents are taken into account.

The poll asked about eight specified household responsibilities and found that 35% of mothers report doing more than their partner for all eight, compared with just 3% of fathers who report the same. For instance, about half of mothers said they are completely or mostly responsible for providing transportation to their kids, while only about a quarter of fathers said they are responsible for all or most of it.

By contrast, majorities of both men and women who are not parents said that if they did have kids they'd share equally in things like providing transportation, changing diapers and attending to children waking up at night.

Mothers and fathers had different ideas about who does the bulk of household chores. For instance, 21% of mothers said they and their partner both equally attend to children if they wake up at night, while 49% of fathers said the same thing. So who is right?

"When you look at time use data, women are more correct than men," said Yana Gallen, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, who worked on the poll.

Life can also complicate the best-laid plans. Liana Price, 35, who has a 4-month-old baby who came as a "very much wanted surprise" during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when Price was undergoing chemotherapy treatments on her hands and had a pregnancy complication, said she stopped working in January as a result of everything going on.

"Things just kind of changed very drastically. And suddenly for us, we didn't really have like a plan," Price said. While Price and her husband had planned to both work full time, with her taking maternity leave offered by her job as a registered nurse, instead she quit her job and they began to run through savings.

Still, she says she and her husband divide child care equally—including attending to night wakings.

"When I was breastfeeding, there was no point in him getting up in the middle of the night. But now that I'm formula feeding, we alternate nights," she said. "However, during the day my husband does work from home. He travels, too. So when he travels, obviously everything is on me."

Experts say one reason women report doing more house and child care work is not only because they actually do more—which is often true—but also because men are not always aware of all the work involved. That includes planning family activities and organizing appointments and even things like providing children with emotional support.

The poll found that 57% of mothers said they provide "all or most" emotional support to their children. Only 1% of mothers said that their partner does. In contrast, 10% of fathers said they are the primary provider of emotional support to their kids, while 24% said it's their partner.

Much has been said about the effects of the pandemic on women, including many women who left or stepped back from the labor force to take care of their children or aging parents. The U.S. lost tens of millions of jobs when states began shuttering huge swaths of the economy after COVID-19 erupted. But as the economy has quickly rebounded and employers have posted record-high job openings, many women have delayed a return to the workplace, willingly or otherwise.

In the spring of 2020, roughly 3.5 million mothers with school-age children either lost jobs, took leaves of absence or left the labor market altogether, according to an analysis by the Census Bureau. Many have not returned. A recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that one in three women over the past year had thought about leaving their jobs or "downshifting" their careers. Early in the pandemic, by contrast, the study's authors said, just one in four women had considered leaving.

"But another thing that happened during the pandemic is a lot more jobs became remote and working from home became OK with a lot of jobs," Gallen said. "So I think that actually really helps women in the workplace because a potentially big problem has been that, women don't feel like they can take some of the higher-paying jobs available" that involve travel or long hours away from home.

"So this pandemic kind of moved forward a shift to more female friendly conditions and many jobs," she said.

This includes schedule flexibility and, for jobs in which that's possible, remote work. Women are more likely than men to say flexibility at work is important when thinking about whether or not to have a child, 74% versus 66%, according to the poll.

It's not just the division of household responsibilities that having kids can throw into a loop. It's been well documented that having children can hinder women's careers, both when it comes to pay when compared with men (including men with children) and advancing to better jobs.

According to the poll, 47% of women say having a child is an obstacle for job security at their current or most recent job, compared with 36% of men. Americans under 30 were especially likely to say that, compared with older adults.

Amy Hill, who is 31 and lives in West Virginia, said she's happy with her home division of labor, even though she does more than her husband. That's because he works in the coal mines, doing 16-hour shifts away from home. Her work, while steady, is not full time—she does makeup for proms, weddings and other events.

"I think it helps not being around each other a whole lot because I miss him when he's gone, you know?" she said. "As long as we've been together, he's been working underground. And also, he doesn't really fold the towels the way I want them to be folded."

___

The AP-NORC poll of 1,054 adults was conducted Oct. 7-11 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Mothers bear the cost of the pandemic shift to remote work

Women are homeless in greater numbers than has previously been assumed, new research shows

by University of York

Women's homelessness occurs at a far greater scale than is recognized and systemic failures leave many in a "state of survival," new study reveals.

The report, from the University of York and London-based homeless project, Fulfilling Lives in Islington & Camden, says that while the research was conducted in the capital—women's homlessness is a national issue.

Findings include:

Women are more likely to experience hidden homelessness (when people exist out of sight in temporary accommodation, squats or with friends and family.
Women's experiences are very distinct from those of men.
There has been a failure to recognize, count and respond to women's homelessness effectively.
Lone adult homelessness is as likely to be female as male—women are just less visible.
Domestic abuse and other forms of gender-based violence are near universal experiences for women who experience homelessness.

Researchers say existing recording and counting systems in England do not accurately record all the women experiencing homelessness. However, pre-pandemic data indicates at least 14 percent of rough sleepers in England are women.

Violence and abuse

Lead author Joanne Bretherton from the Centre for Housing Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work said: "Women experiencing homelessness are living in a state of survival, often without access to services and in high-risk environments where they are frequently subjected to violence and abuse".

Professor Nicholas Pleace, Director of the Centre for Housing Policy added:"The nature and extent of women's homelessness has long been misunderstood. Women have been neglected and let down by the systems that should have been there to support them."

Over 100 women who were homeless took part in the research. One woman recounted how she had resorted to, "walking around all night, going on busses, sleeping in hospitals... sleeping alone in woods."

Recommendations for change

Drawing on existing and previously unexplored data as well as lived experiences, the report makes recommendations nationally for system change in the way homelessness and domestic abuse services are designed, delivered and commissioned.

Researchers concluded that the current system is shaped in a way that overlooks women's homelessness—the definition isn't inclusive of all types of homelessness, counting focuses on environments which women often avoid, and research has previously oversampled men. This results in women living in a state of survival, often without access to services and in high-risk environments where they are frequently subjected to violence and abuse.

Understanding women's needs

Lucy Campbell, Operational Development Manager at Fulfilling Lives in Islington & Camden added: "The women we support report feeling judged and stigmatized when experiencing homelessness—we need to raise awareness of the fact that women experiencing homelessness have almost always been subjected to violence and abuse, repeated trauma, societal inequality—and that they are survivors, who need support which fully understands and responds to their experiences."

Among its recommendations, the report calls for an effective response to women's homelessness centers on ensuring recognition and understanding of women's needs, and in being prepared to create strategy and adapt systems to support these needs at both local and national levels. Researchers also say the connections between domestic abuse and homelessness need to be fully recognized.

The UK's hidden homeless: lone women parents most likely to suffer

Provided by University of York

Women and young academics suffered most during pandemic and may face long-term career consequences

by Lesley Michalegko, Eric Welch, Mary K. Feeney, Timothy P. Johnson, The Conversation

On March 6, 2020, universities across the U.S. announced systematic laboratory closures, social distancing policies and travel bans to cope with the growing coronavirus epidemic. These actions, while prudent and necessary, had immediate negative impacts on the academic enterprise of science in the U.S. and around the world.

We are a team of researchers who study the role of science and technology in society. We are also part of a collaborative, multi-university project, called SciOPS, that seeks to improve how scientists communicate with the public. As the pandemic wore on, researchers began telling us about the work stoppages, data losses and other hardships they were experiencing. We felt this was important information, so we conducted two surveys to understand how the pandemic was affecting researchers.

The pandemic's hardships in academia have been widespread and lasting, but our analyses revealed that female and early career scientists faced more negative impacts than other groups. These differences are likely aggravating already existing disparities and potentially altering career trajectories. The negative outcomes may last well beyond the end of the pandemic.

A survey of researchers

The SciOPS team conducted its first COVID-19 survey in May 2020, with a follow-up exactly a year later in May 2021. For each, we invited faculty from a random sample of 21 U.S. research universities who work in biology, engineering and biochemistry to participate in the study, and about 300 scientists responded each time. Through a series of multiple choice and open-ended questions, the surveys asked how researchers had been affected both professionally and personally by the pandemic.

How the coronavirus disrupted science

Our first survey found that disruptions at work and home negatively affected research activities for a vast majority of the scientists who responded.

On the research side, 93% of respondents experienced university shutdowns and 88% faced lab work disruptions. Over 80% dealt with conference cancelations and travel restrictions. Some researchers also had to quickly adapt to financial issues, and this, along with other hurdles, saw many scientists delaying data collection, applying for timeline extensions or ending data collection early.

Challenges at home also affected scientists' work. Roughly 80% of respondents said they were unable to concentrate on research activities, 72% had anxiety about contracting COVID-19 and 36% had to manage unexpected child care responsibilities.

The May 2021 survey showed that a year later, not much had changed. Responses were nearly identical: 92% of scientists reported difficulties from university closures, 89% experienced lab work disruptions and 84% had collaboration disruptions that had interrupted their research over the past year.

Issues at home were nearly the same as the year prior, too. The only major difference was that 11% percent of respondents reported coping with a family member's illness, compared to only 3% in 2020.

Inevitably, these stressors all took a toll on researchers' well-being. Nearly 60% indicated that their overall mental health and happiness had decreased because of the pandemic. This is higher than a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found 40% of the U.S. general public were facing mental health issues in June 2021. As one researcher stated, reiterating the sentiments of many others in our study: "The mental impact of lockdown affected every researcher in my lab, including me. It was far more damaging than anything else we experienced and caused huge drop-offs in productivity."

Younger researchers and female researchers faced more difficulties

Some scientists felt the added stress from a lack of boundaries between home and work much more acutely than others. The unexpected rises in parental child care and virtual schooling fell most heavily on female and early career faculty.

In our 2020 survey, 34% percent of female scientists reported disruptions due to unexpected child care responsibilities, compared to 21% of males. Early career faculty struggled more too. Roughly 43% of assistant professors indicated unexpected child care duties caused major disruptions to their research, 30% more than their most senior colleagues. In total, nearly 50% of both female respondents and assistant professors reported an inability to concentrate on research activities, while only 29% of male colleagues and 36% of senior colleagues reported the same.

These unequal burdens barely changed between 2020 and 2021. If anything, issues got worse for female scientists. Many reported other unanticipated complications such as management of other family members' mental health, divorce and limited space at home.

Given the extra burdens young researchers and female researchers are facing, it's no surprise their work suffered. Other research has shown that during the pandemic, female scientists had significantly less time to work on research. Many were not able to meet deadlines, and so they submitted fewer manuscripts compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Unsurprisingly, these impacts on productivity were even worse for women with children. Research has shown that home disruptions can cascade over time and result in delayed promotions and tenure. Even pre-COVID-19, working mothers in academia left their respective fields at much higher rates than their male colleagues, and this trend was further amplified by the pandemic.

Adapting to the new world

Undoubtedly, the pandemic has had devastating effects on academic research and those who do it. But hidden among the gloom of our surveys were a few bright spots that highlight the resilience of the scientific community.

In our 2020 survey, 37% of scientists said that they developed new research topics to pursue, and 22% developed new collaborations. Virtual meetings proved to be a valuable transition for some. As one researcher noted, "Through regular videoconference discussions, new and long-distance collaborations have been initiated and maintained between four labs in the U.S. This would have been never envisaged prior to the Zoom era."

The pandemic highlighted existing problems within science but also offered lessons to be learned. Many in academia want to avoid deepening existing inequities in the scientific workforce, and studies have outlined ways to do this. By implementing programs such as tenure clock extensions, advocating for affordable child care and allocating funds to support early career women researchers, the scientific community could enable broader participation, capacity and production for all scientists.

Looking forward, we believe it is critically important for universities and research funders to proactively address the continuing challenges posed by the pandemic, particularly for female and early career faculty. With so much in flux, there is an opportunity to change and improve a system that wasn't working for a lot of people prior to the pandemic

Early, mid-career women experienced higher stress than other academics during pandemic

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Friday, December 24, 2021

Women and young academics suffered most during pandemic and may face long-term career consequences

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