Maintaining Career Momentum: Women-Centered Strategies for Social Sciences Career Success in the Context of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic poses unforeseen risks to women’s academic career advancement. Women faculty are more likely to be grappling with new challenges related to caregiving and work-life balance, compared to their male colleagues, and may be facing more research obstacles due to the disruption of human-subjects data collection. In the following essay, we, two tenure-stream social scientists, describe four strategies that we have relied on to maintain career momentum: staying passionate, engaging in active mentorship, making virtual connections, and launching research in COVID. We conclude with recommendations for institutions of higher education to formalize specific policies to support gender and intersectional equity in career advancement. These include more formalized mentor programs, professional development for and access to technology resources for the purposes of research, institutional training and support in leading research teams, seed grants for racial and gender disparities research, and pro-family policies that provide financial supports and job security in the context of caregiving.