The Gender Pay Gap for Doctors Is Getting Worse. Here ’s What Women Make Compared to Men

Despite the often-quoted statistic that women in the U.S. make 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, the actual figure varies depending on a woman’s race, geographic location and industry. Women of color, for example, have an even larger pay gap than white women. And women in certain fields, such as financial services, are further from pay parity than their peers in other professions. Medicine has traditionally been one of those imbalanced fields — and the latest physician compensation report from Medscape, a medical news site for healthcare professionals, finds that the situation is getting worse for many doctors. According to Medscape’s 2019 report, which polled about 20,000 U.S. doctors in 30 specialties, pay for physicians has risen by about 20% for both primary care physicians and specialists since 2015. But increases have not been equal for male and female doctors. In 2018, male primary care physicians earned about 18% more than their female colleagues, according to the report. By 2019, that gulf had widened to 25% — meaning the average male doctor made $258,000 per year, while the average female physician earned $207,000. The pay gap among specialists was larger to begin with, but it narrowed slightly, from 36% in 2018 to 33% in 2019. The average male specialist’s salary is now $372,000, compared to $280,000 for female specialists. A racial pay gap also persists in medicine, the report finds. Average income for a white doctor is $319,0...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized medicine Source Type: news