Achieving Gender Parity in Audiology

Every year, International Women's Day provides the opportunity to pause and reflect on our progress and how far we must go in achieving gender parity. A recent report grimly projected that it would take 132 years to close the global gender pay gap if the current rate of change is sustained.1 With 86% of audiologists being women2, our entire profession must take stock and consider if we are closing or propelling the current gap.Editorial, gender parity, equal pay, pink-collar professions.THE GLASS ESCALATOR Sociologists classify pink-collar professions as those where most of the workforce is women. Audiologists join the ranks of teachers, nurses, librarians, and speech-language pathologists in this category. These jobs tend to emphasize stereotypically female traits such as patience and caregiving, with the additional toll of emotional labor.3 Research shows the downsides to pink-collar professions: lower pay, lower perceived value, and difficulty rising to senior positions.3,4 It also exposed an interesting phenomenon called the glass escalator, first coined by sociologist Dr. Christine L. Williams in 1992.5 The glass escalator refers to the fast track of career advancements experienced by men, mainly heterosexual white men, who work in female-dominated professions. Several studies demonstrated this pattern across pink-collar professions. Men hold a disproportionately large percentage of leadership positions in these fields and out-earn their female counterparts, even when controlling for experience and work setting.4–6 Interestingly, a nursing study found that male nurses can perceive their preferential treatment. They reported being viewed as more competent, forgiven more often for mistakes, and felt looked after by older women in the profession who took on "motherly roles." It is one of the rare occasions that being a minority is beneficial to one's career.7 Men, however, do not come out unscathed; while men tend not to experience workplace harassment, they can encounter prejudice from individuals outside of the profession.8 THE CURRENT STATE OF GENDER PARITY IN AUDIOLOGY Audiology differs from other pink-collar professions in that it has experienced a drastic demographic shift in the last few decades. When the American Academy of Audiology was founded in 1988, only 7 of the original 32 members were women.9 By 2004, 70% of its membership were women and now, 20 years later, the figure buoys around 85% every year. Yet, the most recent salary report from American Academy of Audiology shows women earn 85% of the average man's salary.10 HOW AUDIOLOGY CAN CLOSE THE GAP Words Matter. We must be mindful of how we present ourselves, our colleagues, and our profession. A 2015 report found an underrepresentation of women in the media, making up a mere 19% of 'experts' featured in news stories globally.11 Along with "expert," "genius" almost exclusively refers to men and even in research, studies deemed "novel," "unique," and "unprecedented" are disproportionately authored by men. One study investigated how physicians introduced fellow physicians at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds. It found that female introducers were significantly more likely to use professional titles, regardless of the presenter's gender (95%). In contrast, male introducers used professional titles 70% of the time when introducing male presenters and only 49% when introducing female speakers.12 When considering provider-patient communication, another study found that female physicians were more than twice as likely to be called by their first name by patients after controlling for patient gender, physician age, level, and specialty.13 Audiology can better itself by being deliberate with its language and normalizing the universal use of titles and respect for areas of expertise, both within the profession, in front of patients, and with the public. Know Your Worth. Women currently make 85% of what men in audiology earn, slightly above the gender wage pay gap in the United States.14 Men initiate salary negotiations four times more often than women do, and when women do negotiate, they undervalue themselves, asking for 30% less money than men do.15 Women also only apply for a promotion when they meet 100% of job qualifications; men do so when they think they meet 60% of job requirements.16 While women suffer from "enemy of good," or the paralysis of striving for perfection, men display "honest overconfidence," a generous estimation of one's abilities.17 Women in audiology must reach higher through negotiations and promotions and own their expertise, accomplishments, and potential. Beware of Stereotypes and Burnout. Women also battle societal expectations and stereotypes. When comparing similarly high-performing coworkers, women perceived as warm, nurturing, and social held more power. Women who demonstrate more agentic behavior were likelier to be viewed as cold, interpersonally hostile, and challenging to work with.18 Audiology must question societal expectations and evaluate internal and systemic biases against women. Are we doing all we can to create viable and abundant career paths for women? If not, the profession will suffer. Rethink Recruitment Pipelines. Even if one were to prescribe to stereotypically gendered roles and characteristics, I would argue that audiology's pink-collar status is somewhat arbitrary; the skill set of an audiologist does not lean "feminine" or "masculine." Instead, its association with other women-dominated professions leads to its skewed demographics. It would behoove the profession to consider diversifying the workforce, including rethinking recruitment to expand beyond communication sciences and disorders to other relevant areas of study such as biology, engineering, pre-med, music, and linguistics.