One Man's Blessing, Another Woman's Curse? Family Factors and the Gender-Earnings Gap of Doctors

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Using data from a new longitudinal survey of doctors from Australia, the authors test whether observed large gender-pay gaps among general practitioners (GPs) are the result of women's larger willingness to interrupt their careers. On average, female GPs earn A$83,000 or 54% less than male GPs. The difference between men and women with children is A$105,000, and A$45,000 for men and women without children. Of this gap, 66-75% is explained by differences in observable characteristics such as hours worked. The family gap emerges also within the sexes. Female GPs with children experience an earnings penalty of A$15,000-A$25,000 in comparison to women without children; almost 100% of this difference is due to observable characteristics such as hours worked and career interruptions. Male GPs with children experience a family premium of A$35,000 in comparison to men without children, indicating the presence of a breadwinner effect that exacerbates the genderearnings gap.JEL Classification: J24

Changes in Doctors’ Working Hours

“…This stems in a large part from the division of labor between married partners, whereby women play a larger role in household production and men in the labor market. Similar patterns have been observed within the medical profession on the role of marriage and parenthood on working hours (Sasser, 2005; Schurer, Kuehle, Scott, & Cheng, 2012; Wang & Sweetman, 2013).…”

How do Australian general practitioners spend their time? A cross-sectional analysis of Medicine in Australia: Balancing Employment and Life (MABEL) data examining ‘non-billable workload’

“…The present study concurs with existing literature that female GPs perform more non-billable work than their male colleagues. 5,13 There may be several reasons for this: female GPs are more conscientious than their male colleagues 22 and more likely to see female patients or manage psychological or social problems, 23 factors previously identified as being associated with increased work outside the consultation. 5 The finding that female GPs perform more non-billable work is significant in terms of the earning gap between male and female GPs of $83,000 per annum.…”

“…5 The finding that female GPs perform more non-billable work is significant in terms of the earning gap between male and female GPs of $83,000 per annum. 22 While the reasons for this are likely multifactorial, [22][23][24] the observed gender difference in the amount of non-billable work may offer a partial explanation.…”

Attrition Bias in Panel Data: A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing? A Case Study Based on the MABEL Survey

“…For example, Schurer et al (2012) find that differences in hours worked explain 53 percent of the earnings gap among male and female Australian General Practitioners. An important issue in the earnings differential literature is the question of whether the marginal returns to working hours decreases with the number of hours worked, and this has been analysed for medical doctors (Conrad et al 2002;Gravelle et al 2011) as well as solicitors (McNabb and Wass 2006).…”