Despite the transition into the new year of 2025, there is still a gender gap that exists within the medical field. This blog will cover two areas where women are marginalised within medicine, this being the amount of research published by female authors, as well as the pay gap that still exists. Whilst the majority of this blog will look into the roles within medicine and research, there is also this gap that exists within medical students. Amongst fifth year students, they were perceived as having disadvantages both in terms of career choices as well as having their ability to achieve their career goals. A prominent example of this is within certain specialties such as surgery, women are dissuaded from pursuing this route, and face forms of discrimination that may not be as prevalent in other specialties (Field & Lennox, 1996).
The first area that will be covered is the prevalence of women within academic research in medicine. Overtime, the prevalence of female authors in medicine has been increasing, highlighting how a sample study found that in 1970, 5.9% of first authors in medical literature were female, with this increasing to 29.3% in 2004 (Jagsi et al, 2006). Despite this obvious gradual incline in the representation of women within the research field, women are still “underrepresented” as authors, which leads to having fewer opportunities to contribute to and influence the field (Spector & Overholser, 2019). These gaps in representation within literature highlight the harms present for women within the medical field, which leads to women being less likely to pursue conducting research in the academic field, further harming the likelihood of female research being put out.
Another area of problem surrounding women in medicine is the dilemma of the desire to have a family life, whilst also maintaining their work. There have been basic steps that have been made in order to support women who are pregnant or have young children, such as the provision of childcare places and a more flexible working pattern, however, this is not universal, nor sufficient (Jerge-Bretzke & Limbrecht, 2012). This leads to a lack of women in leadership positions due to the disruptions to their work life due to the desire for a family. In order to develop an equal gendered area of medicine, there needs to be greater support for women looking to have a family, in order to prevent them from falling behind their colleagues.
When analysing the gender gap within medicine, as well as many other professional fields, the primary area looked into is the pay difference. Despite the Equality Act 2010 requiring employers to pay men and women equally for work of equal value, there are still gender pay disparities that exist (Equality Act, 2010). For example, an area where there is a pay disparity is for physicians. Research conducted looked at a total of 46 articles, all posted after the year 2000, and across these studies, almost all of them found that female doctors earnt significantly less than men, often times being tens of thousands of dollars annually, with this being persistent over time, and not something that went away as the years went on (Hoff & Lee, 2021). This shows that there is still a gender pay gap that exists within medicine, which can lead to a multitude of harms. For example, this may discourage women from pursuing a career in medicine, leading to less doctors whilst this is already an area of struggle, but could also lead to harms in the workplace where female doctors are not viewed with as high of a lever of respect as their male counterparts due to this may disparity. Although it is not allowed for employers to pay differently for equal work based on gender, there is still progress that needs to be made for medicine to be an environment that is equal for people of all genders. This gender gap that exists within medicine also leads to further harm in the space such as lower population representation, less voices, and less diversity in research.
References
Equality Act (2010). Equality Act 2010. Legislation.gov.uk. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents (Accessed 9 January 2025)
Field, D., Lennnox, A (1996). Gender in medicine: the views of first and fifth year medical students. Medical Education. pp 246-252
Hoff, T., Lee, D R (2021) The gender pay gap in medicine: A systematic review
Jagsi, R., Phil, D., Guancial, E., Worobey, C., Henault, L., Chang, Y., Starr, R., Tarbell, N., Hylek, E (2006). The “Gender Gap” in Authorship of Academic Medical Literature- A 35-Year Perspective. The New England Journal of Medicine. pp 281-287
Jerg-Bretzke, L., Limbrecht, L (2012). Where have they gone?- A discussion on the balancing act of female doctors between work and family. GMS Zeitschrift fur Medizinische Ausbildung
Spector, N., Overholser, B (2019). Examining Gender Disparity in Medicine and Setting a Course Forward. JAMA Network. Available at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2736928 (Accessed 9 January 2025)
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