Differences in income between male and female physicians

doi:10.1016/0167-6296(86)90008-1

Journal of Health Economics

Volume 5, Issue 4, December 1986, Pages 335-346

https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-6296(86)90008-1 Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous studies suggest that female physicians earn less on average from the practice of medicine than their male counterparts even after differences in personal characteristics are taken into account. In our study of sex differences in physician earnings, we estimate hourly earnings equations for 1982 using a specification that controls for differences in personal characteristics between male and female physicians more completely than the specification used in previous studies. We also employ more precise estimators for the unexplained earnings differential. Our results suggest that previous studies have overstated the unexplained differential in hourly earnings. We find that female physicians in 1982 earned 12–13 percent less than male physicians due to discrimination or unexplained factors.

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Citation Excerpt :
Most economic studies of labour market differences between female and male physicians have focused on understanding gaps in earnings and/or wages. Contributions include Ohsfeldt and Culler (1986), Rizzo and Zeckhauser (2007), and Theurl and Winner (2011). Across developed countries a common finding is that females have lower annual earnings, although there is more debate – see, for example, Baker (1996), and Bashaw and Heywood (2001) – about gaps in hourly wages.
With the increasing participation of women in the physician workforce, it is important to understand the sources of differences between male and female physicians' market labour supply for developing effective human resource policies in the health care sector. Gendered associations between family status and physician labour supply are explored in the Canadian labour market, where physicians are paid according to a common fee schedule and have substantial discretion in setting their hours of work. Canadian 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006 twenty percent census files with 22,407 physician observations are used for the analysis. Although both male and female physicians have statistically indistinguishable hours of market work when never married and without children, married male physicians have higher market hours, and their hours are unchanged or increased with parenthood. In contrast, female physicians have lower market hours when married, and much lower hours when a parent. Little change over time in these patterns is observed for males, but for females two offsetting trends are observed: the magnitude of the marriage-hours effect declined, whereas that for motherhood increased. Preferences and/or social norms induce substantially different labour market outcomes. In terms of work at home, the presence of children is associated with higher hours for male physicians, but for females the hours increase is at least twice as large. A male physician's spouse is much less likely to be employed, and if employed, has lower market hours in the presence of children. In contrast, a female physician's spouse is more likely to be employed if there are three or more children. Both male and female physicians have lower hours of work when married to another physician. Overall, there is no gender difference in physician market labour supply after controlling for family status and demographics.

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^☆: The comments and suggestions of Joseph Newhouse and participants of workshops at the University of Wisconsin and the American Medical Association are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed in this paper as well as any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.

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Differences in income between male and female physicians☆

Abstract

Economics Letters

The theory of discrimination

The economics of discrimination

Wage discrimination: Reduced form and structural estimates

Journal of Human Resources

Income differences between male and female physicians

The measurement of race and gender wage differentials: Evidence from the federal sector

Industrial and Labor Relations Review

Tests of equality between subsets of coefficients in two linear regressions

Econometrica

The reputations of American medical schools

Social Forces

Interpretation of dummy variables in semilogarithmic equations: Small sample implications

Southern Economic Journal

Smearing estimate: A nonparametric retransformation method

Journal of the American Statistical Association

Sex differences in the earnings of Ph.D.s

Industrial and Labor Relations Review

Work characteristics and the male-female earnings gap

American Economic Review

Sexual differences in earnings: The role of individual personalities and tastes

Journal of Human Resources

The interpretation of dummy variables in semilogarithmic equations

American Economic Review