Should we all draw up Covid CVs?

It has been widely reported that the pandemic has hit academic women harder than men because many academic women bear a greater burden of household duties and caring responsibilities. Moreover, there is evidence that bias becomes more salient in decision-making processes at times of stress, which can marginalise equity initiatives. 

So how should we respond? How can we avoid younger female academics losing out over the coming years as their contributions are weighted in applications for jobs, promotions and funding?

One proposal is to adopt “stop the clock” policies on all promotion and grant applications – rather like those offered to new parents on the tenure track in the US. However, these seem to inadvertently increase men’s productivity through not acknowledging the inequitable caring responsibilities women assume.

CVs are the main measure of an academic’s productivity and scholarly achievement, so to my mind it is crucial that they should reflect the scope, context and impact of Covid-19, while also ensuring that issues of gender equity are addressed.

Common career disruptions – or “CV gaps” – include maternity leave, sickness leave and reductions in full-time hours to care for young children or elderly relatives. Yet, despite the familiarity of such scenarios, many academics remain uncertain about how such pauses in research productivity should be acknowledged in their CVs.

Some academic CVs have footnotes indicating leave of absence for the birth of a child. But academics’ caution about adopting such innovations is understandable; one study, for instance, showed that when presented with CVs from equally qualified mothers and “nonmothers”, evaluators consistently judge mothers as less competent and less committed.

On the other hand, another study showed that where there is a noticeable employment gap in a CV, employers are 30 to 40 per cent more likely to hire women who disclose that they were raising a family than those who did not address the gap at all – suggesting that employers fill in the blank with negative assumptions about competence. And if we move towards asking for personal statements about such gaps, we run the risk that some explanations (such as child-bearing) will be seen in a positive light, with others (for example, mental health problems) viewed less well.

Yet it might well be that when it comes to explaining Covid productivity, CVs routinely list factors such as homeschooling, caring for family members with Covid or even mental health issues associated with Covid.

A Covid CV app that recognises how home life factors into the achievements of female academics is being beta-tested. It is designed by Rachel Wheeler of Indiana University, who previously complied a “RealCV” to help her view her work in a more holistic way; it listed professional accomplishments on a timeline alongside other events that had impacted on her, including harassment, prolonged stress, illness and single parenthood. The Covid CV app is similarly intended as a therapeutic tool for individuals to look at academic outputs and achievements in the larger context of their life during the pandemic.

An alternative option, the Covid-19 CV Matrix, offers a less gendered and emotive approach. It helps academics capture their accomplishments during the pandemic, while also considering its impact on other opportunities. In addition to traditional professional contributions and outputs, it lists achievements such as professional development, volunteering, advocacy, social media and service activities, and allows users to indicate whether these were “Covid affected”, “ongoing and not affected by Covid”, “new Covid-related” or “new Covid-unrelated”.

Universities themselves must also identify the degree to which Covid-19 has impacted on their staff’s productivity and acknowledge a “slow down” in the achievement of certain common metrics, including publications, grant applications and conference presentations. Promotion and tenure committees should consider using different standards when assessing research and publication output in 2020-21 and perhaps 2021-22.

For example, invitations to speak at conferences that were later cancelled should count as evidence of continued productivity and scholarly contribution. Increased workloads should be acknowledged in connection with the move to online teaching, larger class sizes and more student contact hours. The different degrees to which caring responsibilities, financial struggles and mental load have affected faculty members’ capacity to work should be assessed.

And, crucially, the burden of pastoral care – the main burden of which tends to fall on women – be taken into account. For example, institutional leaders should consider adopting new benchmarks enumerating the amount and types of emotional (invisible) labour someone has provided. This can include “virtual coffee hours”, “check-in meetings” or more substantial videos or emails in which course changes, additional resources and other measures of support to students are communicated.

Such measures will allow all the academic achievements during a time of immense upheaval and uncertainty to be recognised with parity and transparency.

Jessica Borger is a lecturer in clinical research and translational medicine at Monash University in Australia.