Female Docs Fall Further Behind On Pay

Interesting...this one is also not pertaining to developing countries, but again gives us a framework of thinking about these issues of gender differences and how differences can manifest themselves, be the result of other factors, or cause good/bad changes in the job markets.

Women are playing a greater and greater role in medicine. But when it comes to salaries, they're actually losing ground.

A provocative study in the current issue of the journal Health Affairs finds female physicians' average starting salaries earned nearly $17,000 less than their male counterparts' in 2008, once researchers took into account gender differences in hours clocked, choice of specialty, and other factors.

And, strikingly, the trend for female doctors seems to be heading in the wrong direction. Back in 1999 the gender gap in starting salaries was $3,600 — more than $13,000 less than the most recent discrepancy. 

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The trend is all the more striking because women are on track, finally, to reach parity in medicine. Now half of all medical students are women, up from only 9 percent in the mid-60s. Recent trends suggest about 1 in 3 U.S. doctors is now a woman, with further gains on the way.

So, could there be a backlash going on here? That is, as women become more prominent in medicine, could they be encountering more old-fashioned gender discrimination in the labor market?

The study's authors say they can't prove it, but they don't think so. Instead, they think the influx of women into the profession is leading employers to offer greater flexibility in hours and other family-friendly policies "that are more appealing to female practitioners, but that come at the price of commensurately lower pay."

It's also possible, they say, that women aren't as skilled at negotiating their starting salaries as men. But they think it's unlikely that women have gotten worse at negotiating over the past 10 years.

But even if women doctors are willing to trade off job flexibility for considerably lower pay, the authors think the trend deserves a closer look. For one thing, if the new Affordable Care Act survives in some form and millions more Americans get health coverage, the need for more doctors "will place a brighter spotlight on physician compensation," the study authors say.

Read the whole article here.