Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A woman surgeon and her assistants operating on a patient.
(Photo by Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Health

Women doctors are getting paid millions less than men, a new study suggests

The study models how big the physician pay gap grows over a 40-year medical career. If anything, the figure likely underestimates the scale of the gap.

Shefali Luthra

Health Reporter

Shefali Luthra portrait

Published

2021-12-06 15:00
3:00
December 6, 2021
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Over the course of their careers, men physicians earn about $2 million more than women physicians, according to a new research paper. And that number likely underestimates the gap.

The paper, published in the journal Health Affairs on Monday, illuminates one of the major barriers toward gender equity in medicine. 

“There’s a mountain of empirical and anecdotal evidence that the practice environment is different for female physicians than for male ones,” said Christopher Whaley, a researcher at the RAND Corporation and the paper’s lead author. “We wanted to ask, ‘What is the net impact of the differences across the entire career?’ It’s literally millions of dollars.”

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

The analysis relies on physician-reported salary data from between 2014 and 2019, looking at self-reported compensation for more than 80,000 doctors. Researchers adjusted the data to account for other factors that could result in salary differences such as choice of medical specialty, years of experience, hours worked, location, practice type and number of patients seen. They then built a model to examine how individual year pay gaps could accumulate over a 40-year career. 

The pay gap emerged in every medical specialty, even after controlling for factors like experience and hours worked. In primary care, for instance, men earned about $900,000 more over their careers than did women who worked the exact same job. In surgical specialties, men earned about $2.5 million more.

The $2 million figure stems from direct comparisons between specific types of medicine — analyzing salary gaps between men and women who are surgeons, for instance. But it does not reflect the fact that in general, women are more likely to practice in less lucrative medical professions. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

The findings, which are consistent with other research, suggest that gender-based pay gaps emerge early on in doctors’ careers. From the outset, men are paid more than women. Women never catch up. (The data did not account for nonbinary doctors and did not look at race and gender together.)

If anything, the figure likely underestimates the scale of the physician pay gap.

“They’re being pretty generous, relative to what the data actually might show,” said Kathryn Edwards, an economist at the RAND Corporation who studies gender pay gaps but was not involved with this paper. 

The 40-year career assumes, for instance, that both men and women work the same number of years in the medical field. But systemic discrimination — combined with responsibilities of parenthood that disproportionately fall on women — could mean that women were more likely to leave the medical field early than men. That would result in even bigger pay inequities.

The researchers acknowledged that likelihood as well.

“If women were more likely to exit active medical practice, as suggested by other studies, our reported results may also underestimate the actual magnitude of the gender income gap,” the paper reads. 

Another issue is that of what kind of medicine men versus women typically practice. Primary care doctors and pediatricians, who are predominantly women, are paid less than orthopedic surgeons, for example, who are predominantly men. 

“We know that medical students make choices to go into certain specialties depending on how welcoming they think the climate is,” said Diana Lautenberger, the head of the gender equity lab at the Association of American Medical Colleges, who was not involved in the study. “There are studies that show that students are making choices based on gender-biased comments, or racial-biased comments, or what behavior is allowed.”

Medical students and residents often pick their specialties around the age when many are preparing to start families, Whaley noted. If some specialties are not conducive to allowing for child care or parental leave, that could also deter women from entering those fields.

“Easing the transition could help women be more likely to become orthopedic surgeons or specialities that are high-paying,” he added.

Gender-based pay gaps exist in virtually every profession, Edwards noted, and it’s difficult to compare the physician gap to that of other industries. That also means it is harder to devise policy solutions.

“There’s no silver bullet for a physician as a profession. It probably has its own set of demons,” she said. “But it’s still operating in this broader construct of men and women in society.”

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

Up Next

pro and anti-abortion rights activists gather outside the Supreme Court.

Abortion

What you need to know about the Supreme Court case that could overturn Roe v. Wade

The future of abortion rights are up in the air as the court will hear arguments Wednesday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Here’s how to listen and background on the case.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram