Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

Gender Inequality Within the Healthcare Workplace

Taylor Hickey
University of Kentucky

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

Abstract
The inequality between genders is heavily noticeable within the healthcare workplace.
There is still a large gap between the annual salary of each gender. Although the cause to
this may be due to more males working in more specialized fields, it still uncovers the
inequality of representation of each gender among those specialized careers. Leadership
in healthcare is another factor into the inequality between genders. Women have proven
to be just as hard of workers as men, however the number of women in leadership
positions is shockingly lower than the number of men. The stereotypes of our culture play
a huge role in inequality in the healthcare workplace. Our culture expects women to be
below men and at the same time expects men to be the constant source of income, no
matter the circumstances. Finally, inequality plays a role when the co-workers disrespect
their colleagues through different forms of sexual harassment. Overall is equality could
be established in the healthcare workplace, improvement and success can be
accomplished.
Keywords: inequality, healthcare, pay, leadership, stereotypes
Ever since women have entered the workplace, they have been striving for
equality with their male counterparts in many aspects. However, women are not the only
ones faced with equality considering men face gender inequality of their own. Feminist
Majority Foundation states (Reid 2014), If we work at the same rate of progress that
were having, it would take about 500 years to reach gender parity. The healthcare
workplace is not an exception to these disparities. Although society as a whole is making
strides to diminish gender inequality in the healthcare workplace, it still remains an issue

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

in factors such as payment, roles of leadership with in the workplace, and the rooted
stereotypes of our culture.
I will be examining the annual salary pay gap between genders, the gender
inequality in the ability of advancement within healthcare, the expectations of genders
inside and outside of the workplace, and employer bias of each gender and their set
predisposition on which gender has a better work ethic. To make grounds on the
existence of gender inequalities in the healthcare workplace, I will first cover the
payment inequalities.
Payment inequality has always been an issue in every workplace and has caused a
large amount of differences between genders as well. Even though it seems as if the
annual salary gap between men and women is closing, in the healthcare workplace, it
appears to be getting larger. According to Andrew Fitch (2014), the pay gap is not
specific to just pay but also is factored into how many patients
each physician gender is seeing, and the amount of service
theyre providing for each patient (See Figure 1). On average,
women earn only 77 cents to a mans dollar. Ethically this
doesnt seem right due to the equivalence in job effort as well
as the outcomes of the job resulting in comparable measures
between each gender. According to a blog written by Sarah
Kliff (2013), New research in the Journal of the American

Figure 1. The pay gap

between genders is
largely noticeable.

Medical Association suggests that the gender pay gap among

doctors, dentists, and other health care workers has grown over the past decade. In the
1980s the pay gap between and male and female annual salary was around 20 percent,

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

however, by the late 2000s, the pay gap had increased to be 25.3 percent. One possibility
for the gap between gender salaries could involve the specialty and the type of work each
gender is primarily a part of. Stated from authors, Seth Seabury, Amitabh Chandra, and
Anupam Jena, also recorded in Kliffs blog (2013),
This is because specialty and practice choice may be due not only to preferences
of female physicians but also unequal opportunities. For example, are unadjusted
earnings differences between male and female physicians due to a preference of
female physicians for lower-paying specialties (eg. Pediatrics or primary care), or
do female physicians have less opportunity to enter higher paying specialties
despite having similar preferences as male physicians?
We see this to be true according to the Association of American Medical Colleges and
their statistics claiming that women represent over half of our countrys pediatricians but
yet fewer than 10 percent of orthopedic surgeons in the United States.
Differences between genders annual salary could largely be impacted by the
morals of the physician and their individual choices as to which companies they are
willing to accept money from. According to Charles Ornstein from New York Times
(Ornstein 2014), More than 90 percent of the 300 doctors who collected the most
money for speaking and consulting are men, based on information form the new
government database, called Open Payments. By comparison, men accounted for about
68 percent of active physicians in the United States in 2012, according to the Association
of American Medical Colleges. To expand on Ornsteins point, he goes on to express
that he believes men could be getting paid more due to their willingness to accept money
from drug companies more than women. However, a question still remains to why men

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

are more likely to be found in senior positions and higher medical specialty positions than
women. The amount of leadership each gender has is another inequality within the
healthcare workplace.
Leadership within not only the healthcare workplace but also within in every
workplace could benefit from having equal statistics of both genders in power. Not only
does the difference in gender viewpoints bring more ideas to discussion within the
workplace, but it also attracts more people due to the equal opportunity for leadership
within the company. In a Reid Report titled, Fighting for Gender and Racial Equality in
the Workplace, Reporter Joy Reid interviews Natalia Oberti Noguera, the found and CEO
of he Pipeline Fellowship. During the interview, Noguera states (Reid 2014), When we
do see more women at the helm of start ups, for example, we see greater returns for the
start up. Studies have shown that companies who have more leadership positions filled
by women to create a more equal representation of each gender overall succeed better due
to the diversity and variability of ideas from each counterpart.
From a study done by Bloomberg BusinessWeek employees at a pharmacy
company were tracked by placing sensor chips on them to track their movements and
work throughout the day. Waber (2014), found that women and men were equally able to
succeed in leadership tasks and have the same work ethic. In some instances, such as who
was more likely to be promoted, women scored slightly higher than the men employees.
However, at the company studied, only about 13% of the top executives were indeed
female. The shocking results only proved that women have a harder time gaining
leadership positions even though they are doing the same amount of work and putting in
the same amount of effort as their male counterparts. As you can see from this study, bias

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

and stereotypes seem like the most logical reasons as to why there wasnt an equivalence
of success between each gender. Another cause for concern of inequality in the healthcare
workplace is the stereotypes that are strongly rooted with our culture.
The most outstanding stereotypes in our culture include certain gender roles in the
healthcare workplace such as, what type of job each gender should have, the duties each
gender has outside of the workplace, and the responsibilities they have within their
gender overall. As a culture, we see men as the dominant species and then women follow
in their footsteps. However, as we progress as a nation, the statistics are no longer
matching the stereotypes. Women are becoming more powerful and independent not only
in the workplace but also in every day life as well. The stereotypes overall are the key
factors in to what is crippling our ability to have equality within every workplace and
especially the healthcare workplace.
More times than not, our culture raised us to think a certain way and to keep that
state of mind for most of our life. Sadly enough, when the word nurse is mentioned, we
automatically pair the word with a female nurse. Even though the statistic is changing,
being a nurse is seen as a predominantly female position. The same thing goes for a
physician or surgeon, most of the time we imagine them to be most likely a male
physician. In our culture it is also common to make the presumption that a male will have
a higher position than a female. Sometimes even the gender of the physician is assumed
to have certain characteristics and methods to how patients are going to be treated. As we
see in an article from Womens Health Magazine (Wen 2013),
A new study from the University of Montreal finds that there may be real
differences between the care provided between female and male doctors. Female

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

doctors are more likely to follow evidence-based guidelines, and they score higher
on care and quality according to the study. Other research has found that female
doctors tend to show greater empathy and are perceived as being better listeners.
Overall women are seen to be more empathetic and create more of an emotional bond
with their patients. On the other hand, men are more commonly
Figure 2. Men Primarily
have the expectation of
working and bringing
home money.

thought to be procedural and just follow basic guidelines. In

spite of this, the expectation of a female being empathetic and a
male being procedural doesnt always hold true.
Another stereotype that creates inequalities in the

workplace is the expectation for men to constantly be providing for

his family. For example, when a couple has a baby, it is obviously
expected for the mother to take some time off of work, however it is seen not as
necessary for the father to take off hardly any time at all. According the Family and
Medical Leave Act, workers get 12 work weeks off if they have been at their job for more
than 12 months. McGregor (2014) found that the typical new dad was found to not take
any further time off than what is paid, in which the time frame of paid leave varies
between different employers. As a male, they have the stereotype of being the
breadwinner of the household so taking off time longer and not bringing money into the
household can be frowned upon by society as a whole, especially with a baby added to
the equation (See Figure 2). Jason Hall (2013) from Forbes magazine writes,
The stigma of being the guy in the office who takes the maximum amount of
leave haunts many dads. Its not the fear of losing a job exactly, but the unspoken
disapproval a question that can come with a long leave.

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

For men, an extended amount of time taken off is seen as lazy and it adds to their
competitive nature in a sense.
Another gender-based bias affecting the gender inequality in the healthcare
workplace is employer bias. Waber (2014) wrote Cornell University conducted a study
on the type of employee hired. To do so, they sent in 1,276 fake resumes to apply to real
job positions, all with the same information and job experience on them except for
personal information regarding gender and whether or not the individual had kids. The
study concluded that males with children were the most likely to be hired, followed by
males and females who did not have any children, and finally the lowest percentage was
the category of women who had children. When interviewing employers as to why this
was, most of their responses were along the lines that women with children would be
more likely to put their children before their obligations to the job. These results showed
obvious bias towards women and a womans tendency to have the Mama Bear instinct
and put their family before anything else. However, they had no hard evidence that the
individual would choose family over their job or that their male counterpart with children
would choose his job over his family. All of their reasons were based upon presumptions
of the gender and their typical behaviors and priorities. Now that we have looked at how
the looked at the employers point of view and relationship with each gender, it is also
crucial to bring to mind of the co-workers relationship and the communication that
develops between different gender employees.
The depth into which a relationship is appropriate is always a red flag when
discussing the affiliation with another co-worker. A report conducted by MD Jessica
Freedman (2010) worked to uncover the statistics of women and men in training for the

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

medical field who had been sexually harassed in one way or another. First looking at
1993, Freedman found that 73% from her survey had reported some sort of sexual
harassment. When conducting a survey again in 2000, she found that about half of her
respondents had reported some form of sexual harassment. Thankfully yes, the statistic
had lowered but the unnerving part of the data is that the number still remained in the
majority of those surveyed. Respect in the healthcare workplace and in every workplace
ideally is an extremely fundamental factor.
The equality between genders in the healthcare workplace would create a ripple
effect for the businesses as a whole. The attractiveness of equality opens the business up
to performing better. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency equality
between genders in the workplace can result in creating a higher level of competitiveness
and productivity along with appealing to top-tier talent due to the balanced ability of
advancement within the company. For instance, a company that does not embrace and
provide opportunities for both genders will lose the more highly educated prospects to
companies that will provide equal opportunity. Erasing gender inequality in the
healthcare involves diminishing the pay gap, creating equal opportunities for leadership
positions, and ridding our culture of the rooted gender stereotypes we are raised with. If
we are successful in the ability to create overall gender equality, it could not only impact
companies with improvement but it could also create national improvement, making the
country as whole a productive and fair environment for everyone.

Running head: GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN HEALTHCARE

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Bibliography
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Reid, J. (2014, July 3). Fighting for gender and racial equality in the workplace. MSNBC.
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Waber, B. (2014 January, 30). What Data Analytics Say About Gender Inequality in the
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