Gender Differences in Physician Pay

Abstract This paper analyzes how much of the gender earnings gap among physicians is due to women's greater family responsibilities. Women physicians earn 11 percent less for being married plus 14 percent less for having one child and 22 percent less for having more than one child. Before marrying/having children, women physicians who later became wives or mothers had higher earnings than those who remained single and childless, but sharply reduced their hours of work after marrying/having children. The results suggest that these earnings gaps do not reflect adverse selection but rather individual choices given time constraints imposed by family responsibilities.