Covid-19: Why we still need more women in academia

One small but significant impact of the covid pandemic has been its constraining effect on the academic output of women. The first signs of a sex imbalance were seen in the overwhelmingly male line-ups of experts speaking about covid-19 and the poor representation of women on government pandemic advisory panels.12 Meanwhile journals, including The BMJ and our specialty journals, have seen a worrying drop in the proportion of female first authors of research papers. It seems that, while lockdown may have provided men with time and space to boost their academic output, school closures …