Maybe the male physicians, lawyers, accountants, construction workers, etc can stay at their jobs longer because their WIVES the female physicians, lawyers, accountants, construction workers, etc are doing the things needed to run a household.
Corporate environments make too many value judgements.
It is interesting to see Texas government making all salaries public. So any positions in academics in specific departments seem to have same salary for a specific position (IM full professors make same, anaesthesia full profs or assistant profs make the same etc.).
Most private practices have their doctors’ share of income based on billables after taking a cut for overhead of the practice. So it eliminates the stigma of making more or less based on male vs female. Many of the women physicians I know who are in their 40s and 50s do extremely well in their private practices. One of them runs the all male practice and constantly complains about men taking it too easy!.
@Cheeringsection I think you have the right idea. The wives (with or without their own job outside the house) are taking care of the kids, grocery shopping, doing homework with the kids, taking care of the elders, doing the laundry, cleaning the house, watering the plants, cleaning out the garage, doing the college apps with the kids, researching, washing the car, cooking meals, etc etc. to ENABLE the men who are physicians to stay late
Enable or obligated because otherwise everyone tells them they are bad mothers? I mean, who else is going to take care of these things? The dad? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Good one!
I am worried about your marriage prospects IWBB!
I have to admit that D and SIL are truly 50/50 in everything. I think it helps that both are Dr.s, and they fully understand each other’s day to day stresses.
I’m still trying to figure out if IWBB’s post is serious??? :-t
eta, it did take a wee bit of D’s coaching to get SIL to the point he is at. That being said, he was an excellent student!
You guys need to recalibrate your sarcasm detectors.
My point is many of these female physicians “choosing” to work fewer hours aren’t doing so because women naturally are more likely to want to take on those roles or in order “to allow” their husbands to work more. Women are constantly told that’s what’s expected from them and many will also be told they are bad mothers if they feel/do otherwise.
My favorite part of this story was that a WOMAN chose to publish it. She said that she published it not because she wanted to be vindictive toward the doctor in question, but because she knew that this is a common attitude and wanted it up for discussion. The doctor said that his words were taken out of context - would sure love to see what context.
If someone could get away with paying a female less, why not have a fully female workforce, it would make profit sense, right?
I spent a few minutes looking at the underlying research presentation:
https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2018-compensation-overview-6009667
Some of the compensation difference could be explained by the percentage of doctors that work part-time (22% for women, 12% for men).
I am also not seeing any control for age, experience, or seniority. I am inferring this by looking at the percentage of respondents, which is 66% men and 34% women. Since women have been about 50% of the entering medical school class for the last 15 years, this skew suggests that the male respondents are on average quite a bit older than the female respondents, and likely to have more established practices.
This is basic stuff, but even people who should know better miss this. About 20 years ago, there were complaints from MIT women professors that they were underpaid relative to men. After adjusting for experience, it turned out that they were actually paid slightly more. Note that this was a few years after an internal MIT study found systemic problems in how women were hired, and therefore represented a time when talented women faculty were actively recruited.
Note that I am not saying that these two things explain all of the compensation differences. For that, we need a study that incorporates these controls, plus of course others like adjusting for chosen specialty.
The words the doctor used in the article could have been framed differently. He stepped on his point with the “don’t work as hard” comment which should have been something like, “sometimes choose to work less hours.”
I dont think this is just an issue that “husbands don’t step up so female docs have to work part-time.” I think that ignores that men and women are different, wired differently. We’re all not exactly the same but with different genitalia. There’s a reason why there are more single moms raising kids than there are men. We’re not wired the same.
Many, if not most, men are willing and want to share parenting responsibilities. However, men and women often prioritize things differently. Women think some aspects of parenting are of huge importance, while men often think those aspects shouldn’t take so much time…or aren’t needed at all. A mom will spend a gazillion hours thinking/planning her child’s wedding, while dad may mostly only care about the budget or think the whole thing could be planned in a day. Lol. A mom will spend days back-to-school shopping for her kids. A dad may think everything can just be purchased on Amazon. A mom will spend 2 weeks menu planning for a thanksgiving or Christmas get-together…and a month home decorating for it!! The dad is full-filling the honey-do list. A mom will spend many hours planning her child’s first birthday party while dad is thinking, just tell me when and where and do I need to pick up beer for it. Guest list? Which bakery? Cute invites? Menu items? Party favors? Guys typically don’t care and would just go with whatever is easiest. Women want it all to be perfect and color coordinated…and with a theme!!! Shabby chic, beach, patriotic, etc etc.
there are 6 mother docs that I know personally. None of them work full time by choice. It’s not that they have bad hubbies. These women want to be more of the primary caretaker, attending kids’ sports/dance/etc. They aren’t driven by fear of being labeled “bad mothers.” No. They innately want to “be there.” It’s an insult to women/motherhood to think that women only want to spend more time with young children because they want to avoid being told that they’re bad mothers.
Sometimes it’s hard to know ahead of time exactly how a new mom is going to feel once she has kids. I’ve seen some of the most “career oriented” women go absolutely baby-mushy once they give birth, and their careers get a bit family-tracked. My SIL, a partner in a big Chicago law firm, decided to only work part-time (800 billable hours per year) after her 3rd child was born. It wasn’t because of her husband, it was her desire. I’m sure that technically her fellow law partners could say, “she no longer works as hard as we do,” but that’s just nasty. It negates that she still gives 100% when she is working.
Yes, there are times that moms feel the need to “do more” because their husbands can’t/won’t, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a maternal instinct that can kick in and drive a mom to want to family track herself by choice.
Heck, I’ve had a number of female premeds tell me that they’re switching their paths to PA because they believe it will be more “family friendly.”
That said, a female doctor should never be paid less for the same services. Her annual income may be less due to less hours worked, but pay for service should be the same. I don’t think insurers are paying female docs less for office visits, procedures, etc, because they’re females.
I know plenty of women who are the primary bread winners in their family and their husbands are the stay at home parent. They darn well better be making the same as their male colleagues!
This describes my wife perfectly. She is also in medicine, and was highly career oriented until our first child, and then was part-time by choice for several years.
Now that our kids are older, she is back to focusing on her career. And while compensation is not her primary driver, it is clear that she is outperforming most of her peers as well.
Both my kids went to a pediatrician who was available full time (8-6). We relocated about 15 years ago and a close friend recommended a practice which we chose without much research. It was a bad move because the women doctors worked much shorter hours and even though there was more than one who worked there, no doctors were available most afternoons.
A non-practicing doctor I know quit over 30 years ago from a very hot area back then (pediatric hemotology). According her practicing doc husband, she quit because she had a male “moron” boss who said no one is allowed flexible hours despite being short on qualified doctors in that area. They had a kid a bit late in life and she wanted to work part time for a few months at least. She walked out and never worked again.
There’s nothing better than mom2collegekids post to remind me just how much I stray from being a “typical” female and how much H strays from being a typical male. 
I’m so glad he was the volunteer, very willing, chaperone for our lads’ elementary school field trips! He’s also the more creative one with any sort of party favors, etc, but can’t say that’s a big thing for either of us. I’m just very artistically challenged and as an engineer he can “see” more artistic things in abstract than I can.
I hope all of us agree that all employees should make the same amount for the same job (accounting for experience, etc). I’m aware that this doesn’t always happen in various lines of work, but it should.
Happy to help you know how unique you are. :))
Oh, my family knows - as do all my friends, of course - esp when I’m the one out hiking (or whatever) with the guys while the ladies are doing, uh, whatever it is they do. It’s been the same way my entire life. My H says it’s what he loves about me, so it definitely works for us. We’ve had to teach our boys what “typical” women are like so they don’t mess up in potential relationships, though youngest has a fiancee I get along with great. I may be rare, but I’m not the only one from my mold. 
It’s just weird seeing it spelled out on a thread.
Lol…you’re not as “weird” as you may think. You’re on College Confidential which is dominated by women…
That said, of course there’s always going to be some men who do “stereotypically female” stuff very well, and some women who don’t fit the stereotype at all (and vice versa!). I have 4 brothers who are very hands-on, and also cook, clean, laundry, etc.
But when you look at things like Etsy, Pinterest, and similar, those places are dominated by women for a reason… Stores know this as well, as they set up their merchandise and offer choices that they know will attract women to spend, spend, spend.
I’ve never been on any of these sites, nor care to do so. 
Of course, neither has H.
I’m definitely not a female many places market to and I’m perfectly ok with that. I never minded being the only girl in my college Physics classes either (occasionally there was more than one of us, but female Physics majors were quite rare in my day at my school).
My mom, a retired nurse, worked in a father/daughter surgical practice. The daughter’s husband owned a business and had more flexible hours. Because she was the mom, the school would always call her, not the dad when needed. She made it clear to the schools that she was not to be called if there was an issue with the kids because she would be in surgery, they were to call her husband. She also told my mom that when she was in residency, the coffee maker for residents was in the men’s dressing room. After 2 days of having to ask someone to bring her coffee, she walked in on the 3rd day while the men were changing. The next day the coffee maker was placed in a common area. This has been a few years, so hopefully this isn’t common anymore.
Today, my M4 daughter texted me that a family member of one of her patients hit on her - the cheesy line he gave her was straight up something you might say to someone in a bar after a few drinks. Maybe it happens, but I can’t picture that people feel as comfortable brazenly hitting on male med students or residents as they seem to with females.
Times are changing, but sometimes medicine presents special challenges to women.