Premium
The male–female gap in physician earnings: evidence from a public health insurance system
Author(s) -
Theurl Engelbert,
Winner Hannes
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1663
Subject(s) - earnings , social security , demographic economics , agency (philosophy) , gender gap , gender pay gap , public health insurance , health insurance , empirical evidence , business , labour economics , health care , economics , finance , economic growth , philosophy , epistemology , market economy , wage
Empirical evidence from US studies suggests that female physicians earn less than their male counterparts, on average. The earnings gap does not disappear when individual and market characteristics are controlled for. This paper investigates whether a gender earnings difference can also be observed in a health‐care system predominantly financed by public insurance companies. Using a unique data set of physicians' earnings recorded by a public social security agency in an Austrian province between 2000 and 2004, we find a gender gap in average earnings of about 32%. A substantial share of this gap (20–47%) cannot be explained by individual and market characteristics, leaving labor market discrimination as one possible explanation for the observed gender earnings difference of physicians. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.