Survey: Women pediatric electrophysiologists earn less than men
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Among pediatric electrophysiologists with similar job characteristics, women earned less than men, according to survey results presented at Heart Rhythm 2021.
The results were based on responses to a survey sent to members of the Pediatric and Congenital Electrophysiology Society.
“At our first Women in Pediatric and Congenital Electrophysiology Society (PACES) meeting in 2018, we asked our membership what topics they were most interested in or concerned by, and the perceived disparity in salaries between male and female physicians was the main concern from the female members,” Maully Shah, MBBS, FHRS, FACC, director of electrophysiology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, and Carolina Escudero, MD, MSc, FRCPC, pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist at the Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and assistant professor at the University of Alberta, said in an email interview with Healio. “Other societies including the American Academy of Pediatrics in the Pediatric Life and Career Experience Study have looked at this more broadly across specialties in pediatrics and have documented disparities in compensation between male and female physicians. These other studies have had a more heterogeneous population, whereas we have focused specifically on the specialty of pediatric electrophysiology. We believe that this may be one of the first studies addressing this topic in a highly defined specialty of cardiology.”
Among the 146 respondents, 27% were women and 78% practiced in the United States. The researchers found no differences between the sexes in years of practice, full-time status, practice at an academic center, academic rank, leadership role, status of grant funding and amount of protected research time.
However, among those working full time, the median annual salary for women was $250,000 to $299,000 compared with $300,000 to $399,000 for men (P = .029), the researchers found.
Compared with men, women were less likely to be in the top 45% of earners (27% vs. 51%; P = .015), a difference that remained after adjustment for academic rank and years in practice (OR = 0.26; 95% CI, 0.09-0.82), according to the researchers.
“Unfortunately, the results were not surprising, and this was anticipated by the members who attended the Women in PACES meeting,” Shah and Escudero told Healio. “This study did not only look at compensation, but also other professional aspects. We found that there were no significant differences in having an academic or leadership position between genders, and that there was comparable achievement of academic rank between males and females. This was pleasantly surprising given that other studies have also shown disparity in academic ranking and leadership positions between male and female physicians. Despite this, the compensation was significantly different, and women did not achieve the same salary equity despite similar practice characteristics.”
There are several steps that can be taken to close the pay gap, Shah and Escudero said in an interview.
“An increase in transparency in physician payments, hiring practices and promotion practices stratified by gender is important in helping to increase awareness and recognition of these issues,” they said. “Actively ensuring female representation in leadership roles and selection committees are also important ways to help address gender disparity. Perhaps having standardized compensation models across health regions or countries may help to avoid some of these disparities. At the end of the day, having an enlightened leadership that believes that this type of equity is important and that are committed to promoting equity is critical to helping close the gender pay gap. Studies have also shown that women may not negotiate as aggressively, as this may put them in a different light as compared to men who negotiate aggressively. An additional way to close the gender gap is to help coach women to learn to negotiate more effectively as part of their training and mentorship.”
Because the data were self-reported, there is risk for bias, but the results are consistent with those from similar studies in other medical fields, Shah and Escudero told Healio.
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Escudero CA, et al. Abstract B-AB08-03. Presented at: Heart Rhythm 2021; July 28-31, 2021 (hybrid meeting).
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