Women also took dim view of salary negotiation, survey shows.
This article was first published on Thursday, August 29, 2019 in MedPage Today.
By Ashley Lyles, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Female general surgery residents had lower salary expectations and viewed the negotiation process less favorably than their male counterparts, a survey-based study found.
Male residents had higher expectations than women when it came to their minimum starting salary ($267,700 vs $249,502, P=0.003) and in ideal starting salary ($364,663 vs $334,709, P<0.001), reported Christian de Virgilio, MD, of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, and colleagues in JAMA Surgery.
Women had less favorable perspectives when it came to salary negotiation, as they indicated being less likely to believe they had the resources needed for negotiation (18.6% vs 31.7%, P=0.03) and were less likely to seek other job offers as a method in negotiating higher pay (70.1% vs 82.6%, P=0.01), the investigators found.
Other data showed that female residents were less likely to expect to have children (14.1% vs 24.8%, P=0.008), and were less likely to be married (34.5% vs 50.4%, P=0.001). But, compared with male residents, more of the women believed they would have more responsibilities at home than their significant others (43.5% vs 15.2%, P<0.001).
Women and men had similar career goals, as indicated by expectations to retire at the same age and to work the same number of hours each week, and had similar interests in having academic careers, pursuing research, and being in leadership roles, the researchers added.
These findings emerged from survey responses from 407 residents, of whom 58.5% were male, at 19 U.S. general surgery residency programs. The mean age of the participants was 30.
"Formal training needs to be done before you leave residency, so that you feel that you have all the tools needed to feel satisfied that you've negotiated your best salary," de Virgilio told MedPage Today.
He noted that surgery has been a male-predominated field, but within the last 2 decades or so there have been more women entering the field. And he said that although it is "purely speculative," women may "undervalue themselves and aren't willing to sort of push to get the best salary offer possible."
"It's also possible that negotiating with an older male potentially could be something that can present intimidation to [female general surgery residents]," de Virgilio added.
Taking into account the current gender disparities in leadership and salary within general surgery, efforts are needed to help address these inequities, the researchers said. "These findings may aid in identifying strategies to help narrow the gender gap in general surgery."
Limitations of the study, the team said, included that the results were based on residents' viewpoints on their future career, making it difficult to determine if these expectations will actually come to fruition. In addition, de Virgilio and colleagues noted, the sample size may be too small to detect a difference between women and men with regard to career goals.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Male residents had higher expectations than women when it came to their minimum starting salary, $267,700 vs $249,502, and in ideal starting salary, $364,663 vs $334,709.
Other data showed that female residents were less likely to expect to have children, and were less likely to be married.
But, compared with male residents, more of the women believed they would have more responsibilities at home than their spouses.