The pay gap between male and female doctors is a positive sign that women have more freedom to choose flexible jobs and work shorter hours according to new US research on the pay gap.
Studies show that many male and female doctors are burned out and would rather take jobs that allow them to have a good quality of life – such as jobs with more family-friendly hours.
Now — thanks in large part to the growing ranks of female doctors — such jobs are available. They just come with lower salaries.
“Instead of being penalized because of their gender, female physicians may be seeking out employment arrangements that compensate them in other — non-financial — ways, and more employers may be beginning to offer such arrangements,” the researchers wrote.
The limited range of work-life choices available to men is one of the 13 Reasons It’s Unlucky To Be A Man (see post here).
There is a growing acceptance that men have a narrower selection of work life choices than women, driven by emerging research challenging conventional thinking on the gender pay gap which challenges conventional thinking on the pay gap championed in the Equal Pay: Where Next? report promoted by The Equality and Human Rights Commission, The Fawcett Society, The TUC and Unison.
It’s important to note that male graduates are now 50% more likely to be unemployed, women now earn more than men in the UK in their twenties and that the big difference in men and women’s average earnings kicks in when they become parents and prioritise their children with one parent (usually mum) working less while the other parent (usually dad) works more.
Research from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in the UK reveals that 53% of fathers and 52% of mothers with children under 1 year old say dads spend too little time with their children.
The same research shows that dads are twice as likely as mums to feel that they spend too little time with their children.
Meanwhile, a new report called Work Life Balance: Working For Fathers? report by the charity Working Families and Dr Caroline Gatrell at Lancaster University supports the theory that being the main breadwinner is no fun for men with 82% of fathers saying they want to spend more time with their families.
Glen Poole is UK co-ordinator for International Men's Day, Director at the consultancy Helping Men and news editor of insideMAN magazine. Follow him on twitter @HelpingMen or find out more about his work at www.helpingmen.co.uk.
Men's News From Brighton & Hove, England 
[…] research in the US suggests that the pay gap is a healthy sign that women have more opportunities to choose family-friendly, flexible […]