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What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study

OBJECTIVE: In many countries an increase in the number of women in medicine is accompanied by gender inequality in various aspects of professional practice. Women in medical workforce usually earn less than their male counterparts. The aim of this study was to describe the gender wage difference and...

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Autores principales: Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino, Cassenote, Alex J Flores, Guilloux, Aline G Alves, Miotto, Bruno A, Scheffer, Mario Cesar
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31048423
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023811
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author Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino
Cassenote, Alex J Flores
Guilloux, Aline G Alves
Miotto, Bruno A
Scheffer, Mario Cesar
author_facet Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino
Cassenote, Alex J Flores
Guilloux, Aline G Alves
Miotto, Bruno A
Scheffer, Mario Cesar
author_sort Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: In many countries an increase in the number of women in medicine is accompanied by gender inequality in various aspects of professional practice. Women in medical workforce usually earn less than their male counterparts. The aim of this study was to describe the gender wage difference and analyse the associated factors in relation to Brazil’s physicians. PARTICIPANTS: 2400 physicians. SETTING: Nationwide, cross-sectional study conducted in 2014. METHODS: Data were collected via a telephone enquiry. Sociodemographic and work characteristics were considered factors, and monthly wages (only the monthly earnings based on a medical profession) were considered as the primary outcome. A hierarchical multiple regression model was used to study the factors related to wage differences between male and female physicians. The adjustment of different models was verified by indicators of residual deviance and the Akaike information criterion. Analysis of variance was used to verify the equality hypothesis subsequently among the different models. RESULTS: The probability of men receiving the highest monthly wage range is higher than women for all factors. Almost 80% of women are concentrated in the three lowest wage categories, while 51% of men are in the three highest categories. Among physicians working between 20 and 40 hours a week, only 2.7% of women reported receiving >US$10 762 per month, compared with 13% of men. After adjustment for work characteristics in the hierarchical multiple regression model, the gender variable estimations (ß) remained, with no significant modifications. The final effect of this full model suggests that the probability of men receiving the highest salary level (≥US$10 762) is 17.1%, and for women it is 4.1%. Results indicate that a significant gender wage difference exists in Brazil. CONCLUSION: The inequality between sexes persisted even after adjusting for working factors such as weekly workload, number of weekly on-call shifts, physician office work, length of practice and specialisation.
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spelling pubmed-65020252019-05-21 What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino Cassenote, Alex J Flores Guilloux, Aline G Alves Miotto, Bruno A Scheffer, Mario Cesar BMJ Open Public Health OBJECTIVE: In many countries an increase in the number of women in medicine is accompanied by gender inequality in various aspects of professional practice. Women in medical workforce usually earn less than their male counterparts. The aim of this study was to describe the gender wage difference and analyse the associated factors in relation to Brazil’s physicians. PARTICIPANTS: 2400 physicians. SETTING: Nationwide, cross-sectional study conducted in 2014. METHODS: Data were collected via a telephone enquiry. Sociodemographic and work characteristics were considered factors, and monthly wages (only the monthly earnings based on a medical profession) were considered as the primary outcome. A hierarchical multiple regression model was used to study the factors related to wage differences between male and female physicians. The adjustment of different models was verified by indicators of residual deviance and the Akaike information criterion. Analysis of variance was used to verify the equality hypothesis subsequently among the different models. RESULTS: The probability of men receiving the highest monthly wage range is higher than women for all factors. Almost 80% of women are concentrated in the three lowest wage categories, while 51% of men are in the three highest categories. Among physicians working between 20 and 40 hours a week, only 2.7% of women reported receiving >US$10 762 per month, compared with 13% of men. After adjustment for work characteristics in the hierarchical multiple regression model, the gender variable estimations (ß) remained, with no significant modifications. The final effect of this full model suggests that the probability of men receiving the highest salary level (≥US$10 762) is 17.1%, and for women it is 4.1%. Results indicate that a significant gender wage difference exists in Brazil. CONCLUSION: The inequality between sexes persisted even after adjusting for working factors such as weekly workload, number of weekly on-call shifts, physician office work, length of practice and specialisation. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6502025/ /pubmed/31048423 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023811 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Public Health
Mainardi, Giulia Marcelino
Cassenote, Alex J Flores
Guilloux, Aline G Alves
Miotto, Bruno A
Scheffer, Mario Cesar
What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title_full What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title_fullStr What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title_full_unstemmed What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title_short What explains wage differences between male and female Brazilian physicians? A cross-sectional nationwide study
title_sort what explains wage differences between male and female brazilian physicians? a cross-sectional nationwide study
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502025/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31048423
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-023811
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