Gender pay gap hits all time high among New York physicians
The salary difference between men and women newly-trained as doctors reached its widest divide to date at $27,214.
Pay gaps between newly-trained male and female physicians in New York are persisting, according to the Center for Health Workforce Studies. What's worse is that, despite the growing percentage of women completing training in the state's Graduate Medical Education programs, these pay gaps are actually widening over time.
The number of women completing a GME program in New York has been steadily increasing for a couple of decades. Between 1998 and 2016, the percentage of female GME graduates in the state grew from 36 to 48 percent, according to the Center for Health Workforce Studies. Currently, New York trains more than 16,000 physicians, and about 5,000 annually complete a training program in the state.
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Even after accounting for variables such as ethnicity, citizenship status, practice setting and medical school location, the pay difference between genders reached an all-time high of $27,214 in 2015. That disparity dipped slightly to $26,367 in 2016, the year with the most recent data available from the New York Resident Exit Survey.
Despite the small dip, the disparity is miles above what it was in 2005, when the difference was $9,637. After rising to nearly double that amount in 2007 and then dipping once more in 2010 to about $12,000, the gap has been steadily increasing over the past several years.
Certain specialties show greater gaps than others. Specialists in emergency medicine saw the greatest disparity, with men earning an average of $35,146 more annually than women; that was followed by pulmonary disease specialists ($30,827) and child and adolescent psychiatrists ($26,360).
Perhaps surprisingly, there were a handful of specialties in which women earned more than men, but the disparity was not nearly as large. The largest was in orthopedics, with women generally earning $9,388 more than their male counterparts. Female pediatric subspecialists ($3,253) and pathologists ($2,052) also made slightly more.
Only physicians with confirmed practice plans were included in the analysis. International medical graduates on temporary visas were excluded due to practice restrictions.
CHWS said it will continue to monitor the pay gap and explore other factors that may affect the disparity.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
