Surprise! Female Doctors Make Way Less Than Male Doctors

Surprise! Female Doctors Make Way Less Than Male Doctors Think comparable work experience, education, and a prestigious job title are enough to close the wage gap? Think again. Female physicians at public medical schools in the U.S. make almost $20,000 less than their comparable male counterparts, according to an analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine that analyzed salary information from over 10,000 academic physicians across the country. The report used the Freedom of Information Act to gather compensation information for 10,241 physicians at 24 public medical schools, which was then crossed with information on the individual physicians’ “sex, age, years of experience, faculty rank, specialty, scientific authorship, National Institutes of Health funding, clinical trial participation, and Medicare reimbursements.” After controlling for all of those factors, the report found that female physicians earned $19,878 less than their male colleagues. The uncontrolled wage difference was even more startling, at $51,315. Read Next: 6 Excuses for the Gender Pay Gap You Can Stop Using The report also found that rank mattered less than gender in some cases: the adjusted salaries of female full professors were comparable to those of male associate professors, at $250,971 and $247,212, respectively. For those keeping score, a professor is a higher position that an associate professor. Additionally, the report details that “a substantially higher proportion of women (receive) lower salaries” than men. For example, 57.1% of women that the study collected information on earned less than $200,000 annually, while 33.7% of men earned less than that. Meanwhile, 11.6% of men earned more than $400,000 annually, while just 3.2% of female physicians could say the same. Video Player is loading.Play VideoPlayMuteCurrent Time  0:00/Duration  0:00Loaded: 0%Stream Type  LIVESeek to live, currently playing liveLIVERemaining Time  -0:00  SharePlayback Rate1xChaptersChaptersDescriptionsdescriptions off, selectedCaptionscaptions settings, opens captions settings dialogcaptions off, selectedAudio TrackFullscreenThis is a modal window. This video is either unavailable or not supported in this browser Error Code: MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED Technical details : No compatible source was found for this media. Session ID: 2019-12-30:9939f380b3fed71170fcdf40 Player Element ID: jumpstart_video_1 OK Close Modal DialogBeginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.TextColorWhiteBlackRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentBackgroundColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyOpaqueSemi-TransparentTransparentWindowColorBlackWhiteRedGreenBlueYellowMagentaCyanTransparencyTransparentSemi-TransparentOpaqueFont Size50%75%100%125%150%175%200%300%400%Text Edge StyleNoneRaisedDepressedUniformDropshadowFont FamilyProportional Sans-SerifMonospace Sans-SerifProportional SerifMonospace SerifCasualScriptSmall CapsReset restore all settings to the default valuesDoneClose Modal DialogEnd of dialog window.PlayMuteCurrent Time  0:00/Duration  0:00Loaded: 0%Stream Type  LIVESeek to live, currently playing liveLIVERemaining Time  -0:00  Playback Rate1xFullscreenClose Modal DialogThis is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button.Close Modal DialogThis is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Specialty-wise, surgeons saw the biggest pay difference, with men making as much as $43,728 more than women on average. Radiology was the sole specialty in which women earned more than men, making on average $2,000 more when salaries were adjusted. In sum, the report found that “(s)ignificant sex differences in salary exist in public medical schools after accounting for clinical and research productivity.” Read Next: The Wage Gap Will Cost You Way More Than Half a Million Dollars The phenomenon is nothing new: As MONEY reported a few months ago, Medscape’s annual compensation inquiry found a huge discrepancy in the pay of male and female physicians and specialists (though it noted that female doctors have enjoyed a sizable increase in pay in recent years). Interestingly (or depressingly, depending on your perspective), physician is still the top-paying job for women according to BLS data, despite the persistent wage gap. It’s further proof that hard work, experience, job title, and educationâ€"common excuses for the gender wage gapâ€"just don’t tell the full story when it comes to how men and women are compensated.