‘UNACCEPTABLE’ The $73k gender pay gap for doctors
Top male doctors are earning up to $73,000 more than their female colleagues each year, despite working the same hours and having the same job responsibilities, a Weekend Herald investigation reveals.
Exclusive new data also uncovers alarming disparities in the number of women in specialised medical roles.
New Zealand public hospitals employ nearly 1200 more senior male doctors compared with females, with women making up just a fraction of many highly paid medical positions.
Analysis of senior doctors shows 3459 are male and 2276 are female.
While more than half of New Zealand’s medical graduates are women, only 6.5 per cent of orthopaedic surgeons are female.
Experts say the findings are evidence of alarming gender bias in medicine and highlight how women are being undervalued by our health system, hurting patient care.
National Party health spokesman Shane Reti has slated district health boards for “unacceptable” and “inappropriate” gender-based behaviour.
“This is a discussion that needs to be had across the whole system . . . DHBs need to explain their current gender imbalance and how they will address it,” Reti said.
Doctors and health experts spoken to by the Weekend Herald described a “boys’ club culture” pervading the New Zealand health system. They say the stark gender gap in medicine is just the “tip of the iceberg”.
Some female doctors had faced ingrained sexist attitudes, such as being labelled “hormonal” or “aggressive” when voicing strong opinions. Others shared stories of surgeons asking junior doctors for sex in order to advance their careers, medical graduates routinely facing sexual harassment on the job and female doctors needing to undergo fertility treatment after delaying children to focus on medicine.
Most women interviewed did not want to be identified out of fear of losing their jobs.
Angela Lim, a medical doctor and chief executive of mental health social enterprise Clearhead, said being a woman in medicine meant smiling through comments at board meetings, such as when a patronising older man commented: “You speak really well, not just a pretty face.”
“I have to bite my tongue to not mention that I went to Harvard to complete my research sabbatical and have sat on more boards than he has,”
Data obtained under the Official Information Act shows significant regional disparities, with Whanganui DHB recording the worst gender pay gap for senior doctors ($73,135), followed by
Auckland DHB ($64,806). The national average was $26,000.
Across all industries, the gap between men’s and women’s hourly pay sits at about 9.5 per cent, according to Stats NZ figures. In specialised medicine, it’s 12.5 per cent.
That means while overall women get paid 91c to every $1 a man earns, in specialised medicine, it’s 88c to $1.
Only two of the 20 DHBs paid senior female doctors more than their male colleagues. Taira¯whiti DHB paid women $31,696 more, and Canterbury DHB paid women an extra $316.
Exclusive data showed that while surgery is the highest-paid, it has by far the lowest proportion of women.
Despite the disparities, all but one DHB remain without a plan to tackle the problem. However, a senior doctors’ union has begun an investigation into the scale of the gender pay gap at public hospitals, the Weekend Herald can reveal.
Charlotte Chambers, principal
Northern Advocate analyst at the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), said a pilot study, involving three DHBs, was auditing medical specialists’ remuneration and analysing the salary scale each doctor started on, the qualifications they had when they started in that role, along with any additional remuneration and where they now sit on the salary scale.
ASMS aims to roll the programme out nationally by the end of the year. “We are trying to get objective, quantifiable indicators of qualifications etc . . . and on that basis, we will be looking to find out if there are gender differences, how did they manifest and what could be the reasons for those differences,” said Chambers, who is leading the inquiry.
"DHBs need to explain their current gender imbalance and how they will address it."
Dr Shane Reti, National Party
But she stressed the pay gap was a small part of a much bigger problem.
“All DHBs have given us acknowledgement that gender equality is an issue of concern and they have all signalled their intent to fix it.”
Health Minister Andrew Little acknowledged the problem was wider than the pay gap and said work was under way to ensure growth of health leaders that were truly representative of the community they served.
“It’s important to ensure that the health sector accommodates people from a wide range of backgrounds and enables them to succeed in their careers, no matter what gender they identify with and what their personal aspirations are,” Little said.
“My expectation is that management and DHBs strive to create a supportive workplace culture for all personnel.”