Gender inequality
It is often argued that COVID-19 shed light on the already existing societal problems such as gender inequality in science (Andersen, Nielsen, Simone, Lewiss, & Jagsi, 2020; Huang, Gates, Sinatra, & Barabasi, 2020). In a survey of 880 trainees and professors, women reported lower self-perceived productively (Korbel & Stegle, 2020) possibly due to higher involvement of women with children and domestic responsibilities (Derrick, Jaeger, Chen, & Sugimoto, 2019; Jolly et al., 2014). This and lack of access to childcare during the pandemic has resulted in lower productivity of women academics indirectly assessed by the number of preprints published during the pandemic lockdown (Andersen et al., 2020). Thus all together, policymakers should consider gender inequality and inform polices that promote equity. It is highly crucial that the mitigating policies for loss of productivity ensure gender equity especially for academic mothers (Malisch et al., 2020; Staniscuaski et al., 2020).