http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/1...s-the-smallest/

Discuss.

(I'm going to read the actual journal article while standing in line at the DMV. I'll report back to the class in a bit.)

Interesting. They didn't mention FP and ER as good fields for women, but I always think they are. I also thought the part about MBAs making less if their husbands made more was interesting... and definitely applies in my life. I only "got to" start working part time when my husband (finally) took an attending position where he makes substantially more per hour than I do. I bet that applies across many couples, and probably works either way. Anyway, glad to see the medical profession doesn't "punish" mommy trackers as much as other fields. Seems like the factor affecting it might be networking... fields that require a lot of face time and interpersonal connections might suffer more when that face time takes a big pause. Kind of like starting over. Anyway, done rambling now. Thanks for a good article.

Radiology has inflexible hours?!! OB easily allows for part time work?!?! Who wrote this?

Good article, and good point about the lesser pay hit, but I still maintain that female MBAs take a MUCH lesser lifestyle hit (i.e. no required residency, no licensing issues when coming back after time off, less over-the-top student loans).

BUT 3 cheers for medicine for keeping the pay hit manageable. Too bad I'm not into pets, pills or teeth--veterinary medicine, pharm and dentistry seem like the winners here

Haven't read the article, but just your comments so far. If they quoted OB as easily allows for part-time work and didn't mention FP and ER as family friendly and they said radiology AKA "Rich in the dark" is inflexible...

Convinced the writer is out of touch! I'll have to have a laugh when I take my next break and read this!

Pharm is for sure family-friendly...pharmacist friend loves her field.

Here is the actual study, if anyone is interested:

http://workplaceflexibility.org/images/uploads/program_papers/goldin_-_the_career_cost_of_family.pdf

I have not read the whole thing, but it looks more complicated than the article portrays.

Regarding OB, I think the article and the study are saying that women choose Ob-Gyn because it has all women patients. Whether or not one believes that, they didn't really say that it allows for part-time work.

Good catch, you're right!

Interesting article...I have to say that the thing that keeps me going when I want to quit is that I will have flexibility when I am finally done with residency to decide how much I want to work and still have good earning potential part-time.

I too am surprised about family medicine not being mentioned as flexible/family friendly, and I don't know how accurate their numbers are nationally for percentage of women vs men in the field, since it appears that they were only looking at Harvard grads...I doubt that many people who go to Harvard are likely to have primary care high on their list of intended career choices-->seems like the sub-specialist types would be drawn to that school. (Complete guesswork on my behalf--pardon to the primary care advocates at Harvard!)

Well, on reviewing again, it looks like they did include AMA's national data in addition to their Harvard stats, but I wonder if that would include DO info (who overall are more likely to go into primary care than MD counterparts). Anecdotally, looking around at most FP residencies in my area, they seem by far to be dominated by female trainees-->definitely more than 50% (despite what the study stated as typical for FP).

OB's choosing OB for the women patients...isn't that kind of like saying oncologists choose oncology to treat cancer or surgeons choose surgery because they like surgery, orthos choose orthos because of the bones etc. etc.?

Still very interesting to say the least. Thanks for sharing the article on here!

Okay, I read the whole study. It is not clear to me that women physicians come out the winners. In Table 5 and Figure 8, it seems to me that physicians have the largest gap in median income between men and women, compared to the other professions profiled. I think they only "win" in a different analysis (Table 1), which used complicated statistical techniques that were not fully explained and only included Harvard graduates. Of course, that was the part reported by that article in the NYT.

I also think that the study authors did not really understand all the factors that go into specialty choice, other than those related to lifestyle. However, they did illustrate nicely that Ob-Gyn, though chosen by huge numbers of women, was not family-friendly at all. We hear that here on MomMD all the time.

Simply in $$ per hour, that's a huge gap btw male and female MDs! Yeow!