Female department chairs at U.S. medical schools are paid $70,000 to $80,000 less than their male counterparts each year, a new analysis of salary data from medical schools found.
For the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed salary information of 550 department chairs from 29 public medical schools in 10 states. Researchers found that about 17 percent of the 550 positions were held by women.
Researchers found that women who chair department were paid an average of $373,000 per year, while their male colleagues earned about $452,000.
After the researchers adjusted for academic productivity, specialization and years on the job, they found the pay disparity still existed, with women earning about $70,000 less per year than men.
"When you adjust for all these factors, you still see a pay gap," said Eleni Linos, MD, a professor of dermatology at Stanford. "This calls into question the common explanations for gender disparities and highlights a pervasive structural problem that needs to be addressed. Women are regularly paid less than men, even at the highest levels of academic medicine."