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The most surprising number in article is that the US % of female doctors in only 34%. The percent of med school grads has been near 50% for at least 15 years. I
by topkai22 8y ago
The most surprising number in article is that the US % of female doctors in only 34%. The percent of med school grads has been near 50% for at least 15 years. I couldn’t find numbers going back further then that, so there must be a very large historical imbalance clearing out or a real career dropout problem. I suspect the former, but still.
- rectang 8y agoDon't underestimate structural pregnancy discrimination. One half of the parenting pair finds the deck stacked against them when children arrive.
- epicureanideal 8y agoIs it necessarily discrimination, or might there be other explanations? For example, maybe it's discriminatory social expectations of men to be breadwinners, so they're forced to work at really hard jobs like being doctors while their wives can make a free choice to stay home with the kids. I don't intend this reply to support either view. I'm just saying, discrimination is not necessarily the reason, and even if discrimination is the reason, there are two sides to that coin.
- rectang 8y agoHarmful gender stereotypes are a negative for all of us together, for sure. See for example, your own gendered language on who does the "hard job" and who makes a "free choice".
- epicureanideal 8y agoI specifically created a gendered counterexample to show the problem. I'm very much aware of the gendered use of language in my intentional counterexample.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kaitai 8y agoDay care in the US is a huge problem. It's hard work to find it, and then it's quite strict/constrained on hours.
- topkai22 8y agoIn general, you are right. Amongst super highly educated pairs I don’t think this is the same issue- highly educated mothers overwhelming return to work, see http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/04/08/chapter-2-stay-at-home-mothers-by-demographic-group/ http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/04/08/chapter-2-stay-at-... which indicates mothers with a bachelors and higher work 79% of the time at any given time. Heck, assuming a 20 year motherhood window (2 kids in 2 years and stop) that translates to only 4 years out of the workforce per mother. It’s a fair assumption women with professional degrees leave to workforce on average even less. I guess you need to push up the numbers a bit because there are more women in the newer cohorts and those cohorts are in prime childbearing and rearing age, but that probably balances out with needing to take account of the women never having children (and not included in that statistic.) We aren’t talking about dropping off the executive/promo track, it’s returning to work in the same profession at all. All that being said, it looks like it’s the backlog, not dropout. Less than 10% of US med school grads were women in the 70s (https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/more-women-are-doctors-and-lawyers-than-ever-but-progress-is-stalling/266115/ https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/more-women...). Assume a 40 year career and 34% female is right about where you’d expect the numbers to be.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> there must be a very large historical imbalance clearing out or a real career dropout problem. Or, the US has lots of male doctors from non-US medical schools. (I actually think all three are factors.)
- topkai22 8y agoI actually thought it might go the other direction- extra female med students from abroad returning home. No evidence either way though.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- im3w1l 8y agoDo women leave for other professions or do they leave the labor market altogether?