A new study from scholars affiliated with Yale University has uncovered racial disparities in the average salaries of assistant professors at medical schools at the United States, particularly among women from underrepresented backgrounds.
In an examination of 45,906 assistant professors in 19 clinical specialities at 153 U.S. medical schools during the 2022-2023 academic year, the study authors found White physicians, overall, had higher median annual salaries than Asian physicians and physicians from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine (non-White and non-Asian), with median incomes of $300,000, $291,360, and $278,010, respectively. This means early-career medical school professors who come from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine earn, on average, $0.93 for every $1 earned by their White peers.
Looking at different medical specialities, the largest absolute salary differences between physicians underrepresented in medicine and White physicians were in orthopedic surgery, urology, and dermatology, with underrepresented physicians earning a respective $0.87, $0.89, and $0.89 for every $1 earned by White physicians in those fields. In comparison, the authors found five disciplines in which underrepresented assistant professors in medicine earned as much or more than their White counterparts: neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, clinical pathology, psychiatry, and neurosurgery.
Pay disparities among assistant professors of medicine were the most pronounced for underrepresented women. For every $1 earned by White male assistant professors of medicine, women assistant professors from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine earned $0.78, compared to $0.80 for Asian women and $0.81 percent for White women. The same ratios for underrepresented men and Asian men were $0.92 and $0.98, respectively. There were no medical specialities in which the median salary of underrepresented women outpaced that of their White male counterparts.
To achieve pay equity among assistant professors of medicine, the authors believe institutions will need to promote salary transparency for faculty, prioritize pay equity for new hires, conduct salary reviews for existing employees, and implement training programs to address implicit bias.
