5 factors contributing to the gender pay gap in radiology and how to address them
There is a persistent pay gap in medicine, with women earning about 28% less than their male counterparts, but there are a few key strategies radiology can implement to achieve parity.
That’s according to a new opinion piece by several female members of the profession, published Wednesday in Clinical Imaging. Radiology is one of four medical specialties with the largest such sex-related differences in wages. Beginning to acknowledge and address this gender “pay gap crisis” could have a profound impact, improving patient care and organizational success, Kristin Porter, MD, PhD, and co-authors argued.
“Closing the gender pay gap in radiology will demonstrate that radiology values diversity, inclusion, families and patient outcomes,” Porter, with the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of Radiology, et al. wrote Jan. 5. “We believe the gender pay gap in radiology can be closed in our generation. The world relies on the work that women do—it is time that the world also values it.”
To reach this goal, the editorialists detailed five factors contributing to radiology’s pay gap, along with some strategies to address them:
1. There is a disproportionate share of women in the specialty, and previous evidence has shown that salaries decrease when more female physicians are recruited to a specialty. Porter and co-authors suggest addressing this challenge by launching more women in radiology work groups, diversifying residency selection committees, creating opportunities for applicants to safely discuss parental leave policies, and bolstering national organizations’ efforts to elevate women in imaging.
2. Women in academia often advance at slower rates than men, while those in private practice are forced to pursue per diem positions or non-partnership tracks. Leaders can alleviate such concerns by placing compensation policies on the web to ensure transparency, including all staffers in decisions to change these rules, basing salaries on objective criteria, and gathering more data on women in radiology.
3. Parental leave, breastfeeding, child and homecare duties can all exacerbate the pay gap. Responses might include creating more flexible working hours or remote reading opportunities, eliminating wage reductions when returning to full-time work, removing any negative consequences tied to working part time, implementing lactation programs, and considering an RVU system for parental leave.
4. An ongoing “minority tax” places disproportionate additional responsibilities on individuals because of their gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Porter et al. recommend implementing academic performance-based compensation models along with offering RVU credits for nonclinical duties in private practice.
5. Discrimination and implicit bias also contribute to the gap. The specialty can begin to address these issues by ensuring women are not overlooked for promotions, diversifying selection committees, paying rads for completing annual implicit-bias training, and bolstering efforts to recruit and retain physicians who represent the patient population served.
Read much more about their advice in the official journal of the New York Roentgen Society here.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.