Impact of COVID-19 on Astronomy: Two Years In

TL;DR

This study examines how COVID-19 affected astronomy research, revealing increased overall productivity driven by individual efforts, but also highlighting reduced entry of new researchers and gender disparities in research output during the pandemic.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of COVID-19's impact on astronomy, including productivity trends, barriers for new researchers, and gender disparities, using public publication data.

Findings

Overall publication output increased during COVID-19.

Fewer new researchers and women entered the field.

Gender gap in productivity widened during COVID-19.

Abstract

We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on astronomy using public records of astronomical publications. We show that COVID-19 has had both positive and negative impacts on research in astronomy. We find that the overall output of the field, measured by the yearly paper count, has increased. This is mainly driven by boosted individual productivity seen across most countries, possibly the result of cultural and technological changes in the scientific community during COVID. However, a decreasing number of incoming new researchers is seen in most of the countries we studied, indicating larger barriers for new researchers to enter the field or for junior researchers to complete their first project during COVID. Unfortunately, the overall improvement in productivity seen in the field is not equally shared by female astronomers. By fraction, fewer papers are written by women and fewer women are among incoming new researchers in most countries. Even though female astronomers also became more productive during COVID, the level of improvement is smaller than for men. Pre-COVID, female astronomers in the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland were equally as or even more productive than their male colleagues. During COVID, no single country's female astronomers were able to be more productive than their male colleagues on average.