Male physicians have more net worth than female counterparts
Structural wealth gaps between male and female physicians will likely not show improvement for several years, Medscape says.
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Wealth and earnings disparities between men and women are nothing new, but a new report from Medscape shows the extent to which this is true in healthcare, showing that 66% of male physicians had a family net worth of more than $1 million last year – compared to just 50% of female physicians.
According to the report, that's a gender wealth gap of about 32% favoring men – roughly the same as the 29% difference in average compensation for full-time physicians.
Childcare has an effect on this statistic, with the report noting disparities in who bears the expense of outside childcare, as well as disparities in who assumes the primary responsibilities. Childcare is difficult, the report said, because physician hours often don't comport with normal childcare schedules.
Structural wealth gaps between male and female physicians will likely not show improvement for several years, Medscape said.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT
About one in three female physician respondents reported net worth of less than half a million dollars, compared to just 21% of men who reported the same net worth.
Income is one of the biggest drivers of wealth, and on that score, the gender pay gap is wider in healthcare than in many occupations, translating into a roughly $2 million deficiency in career earnings compared with men.
Female doctors who are also African American or Black are more likely to have a net worth below $1 million than are doctors of other races and ethnicities, data showed.
Women are also somewhat less prone to report investment losses than their male counterparts but were almost as likely to incur financial losses in the past year. Women are less likely to concede that investments in stocks, business or real estate went south, but are more likely to say they either have never made an investment mistake or have never invested at all.
Male doctors are more likely to say they live below their means, while their female counterparts are more likely to report living within their means, the survey showed.
THE LARGER TREND
According to a Health Affairs study from January, the gender wage gap decreased over the last two decades in many healthcare occupations, and notably among those where women's representation increased substantially. For example, among advanced practitioners, the gender wage gap decreased from women's earnings being about 50% of men's earnings to approximately 65% of men's earnings.
A March 2023 Doximity report – which includes self-reported compensation data from more than 190,000 U.S. doctors over six years and more than 31,000 full-time physicians in 2022 – highlights a substantial gender pay gap among physicians, with men earning nearly $110,000 more than their women counterparts in 2022.
This represents a 26% gender pay gap, even when salaries were controlled for specialty, location and years of experience. This disparity may be contributing to an even higher burnout rate among women physicians, with nearly 92% of women physicians surveyed reporting overwork, compared to 83% of men.
Jeff Lagasse is editor of Healthcare Finance News.
Email: jlagasse@himss.org
Healthcare Finance News is a HIMSS Media publication.
