# The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women's Contribution to Public Code

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.01454 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01454/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Oct 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Speed at the Cost of Quality: How Cursor AI Increases Short-Term Velocity and Long-Term Complexity in Open-Source Projects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04427/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Despite its promise of openness and inclusiveness, the development of free and open source software (FOSS) remains significantly unbalanced in terms of gender representation among contributors. To assist open source project maintainers and communities in addressing this imbalance, it is crucial to understand the causes of this inequality.In this study, we aim to establish how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the ability of women to contribute to public code. To do so, we use the Software Heritage archive, which holds the largest dataset of commits to public code, and the difference in differences (DID) methodology from econometrics that enables the derivation of causality from historical data.Our findings show that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women's ability to contribute to the development of public code, relatively to men. Further, our observations of specific contributor subgroups indicate that COVID-19 particularly affected women hobbyists, identified using contribution patterns and email address domains.