COVID-19 and Caregiving IS Researchers: In the Same Storm, but not in the Same Boat

In early 2020, reports emerged about the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic having a negative effect on the productivity of female researchers who spent their time in lockdown taking care of their families but a positive effect on the productivity of male researchers who spent it writing more papers. We wondered if the pandemic had affected caregivers (mostly female) in the information systems (IS) discipline in the same way. If we found that it did, we hoped to be able to suggest what actions caregivers might take in response. As an approximate way to distinguish caregivers from non-caregivers in our analysis, we used gender. Our analysis yielded mixed results, but those results do suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has had some negative impacts on IS researchers who are caregivers. We offer several recommendations to caregiving IS researchers for mitigating the effect that the pandemic has on their professional lives.