gender pay gap

Advisory Board

Female physicians on average are paid $37,000 less than male physicians in their first job after finishing their residencies or fellowships—and the gap cannot be fully explained by seemingly obvious causes, such as practice area and a desire to have greater control over work-life balance, according to a study published last week in Health Affairs.

For the study, researchers examined the unconditional mean starting compensation of more than 16,000 individuals who finished their residency training or fellowships from 1999 through 2017. The researchers reviewed data from the University at Albany, State University of New York‘s Center for Health Workforce Studies’ New York Survey of Residents Completing Training.

The researchers in the study wrote that they focused on “information about new physicians accepting their first non-training position” because it “minimizes unobserved differences in productivity and work experience that may confound analyses of a wider range of physician seniority.”

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Crain’s New York Business

Male physicians earned about 17% more than their female peers upon completing medical residencies in New York, and the difference in pay persisted even when adjusting for differences in specialty and work-life balance preferences, according to a study published Wednesday in Health Affairs.

The analysis of physicians completing residencies here between 1999 and 2017 showed that men starting their career in medicine earned an average of $235,044, compared with 198,426 for women…

…The paper analyzed responses from 16,407 people–9,042 men and 7,005 women. The data come from the annual New York Survey of Residents Completing Training, which is conducted each year by the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies. The researchers noted that New York trains more resident physicians that any other state.

The study found about 60% of the difference in pay between men and women could be explained by what specialty they chose to pursue, with men more likely to practice in lucrative surgical specialties and women more often choosing primary care. But even when adjusting for specialty and demographic differences, the analysis showed about a $20,000 gap between men and women.

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U.S  News & World Report

When hospital administrators insist on paying male physicians more money – even when female physicians have more experience, credentials and training – maybe it’s a reflex, like the knee-hammer test.

Time and time again, women physicians receive smaller salaries and lower signing bonuses than men, says Dr. Roberta Gebhard, president-elect of the American Medical Women’s Association and co-chair of AMWA’s gender equity task force.

In her task force role, Gebhard hears from women physicians, including full professors, who mentor male medical students only to learn they’re already earning much more straight out of their residency programs. She’s suffered from blatant pay inequities in her own career.

Pay gaps between newly trained male and female physicians aren’t only persisting – they’re growing, according to an analysis by the Center for Health Workforce Studies using data from the annual New York Resident Exit Survey.

On average, male physicians’ starting income was some $26,000 more than females’ in 2016. This gap was less than $10,000 in 2005, then up to nearly $12,000 by 2010. Gender wage gaps also showed up by specialty. Women dermatologists earned nearly $80,000 less, cardiologists earned about $64,000 less and emergency medicine physicians about $35,000 less than their early-career male counterparts.

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