Source: Sciencephoto.com

How much more do male doctors make than female ones?

Researchers say the gap is 12-thousand dollars per year and that’s adds up to more than $350,000 over a typical-30 year career!

The Huffington Post reported:

Women physician-scientists are paid much less than their male counterparts, researchers found, with a salary difference that over the course of a career could pay for a college education, a spacious house, or a retirement nest egg.

To get the fairest comparison, the study authors took into account work hours, academic titles, medical specialties, age and other factors that influence salaries. They included only doctors who were involved in research at U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals, all at the same stage in their careers. And they still found men’s average yearly salaries were at least $12,000 higher than women’s.

While previous studies have found that female doctors are frequently paid less than male doctors, many observers have assumed that’s often related to having children – working fewer hours, or choosing less time-consuming, lower-paying specialties to allow time for child-rearing.

The new study did find more women in less lucrative specialties, including pediatrics and family medicine, and more men in the highest-paying fields, including heart surgery and radiology. But it still found salary inequities even among women and men without parental responsibilities, in similar jobs.

A common reason given in situations like these (including this one) is that men tend to be more aggressive at self-promoting and asking for pay raises than women. That may be true, but when will we stop using that as an excuse to pay women less than what they’re worth? Especially when we know and it has been documented that women make less. Shouldn’t these companies begin to look at their hiring practices and how they determine salaries and raises instead of always leaning on the “women aren’t aggressive” argument?

I’m not buying it. I think women across the board (not just doctors, but in other professions as well) are paid less because companies know they can get away with it. The companies forbid employees to talk about their salary, and, as a result many women don’t even realize they are making less than they deserve. Then when it takes a national study to point it out, everyone goes back to the “women don’t ask for raises” excuse.

Of course, these doctors salaries are nothing to sneeze at considering this report says the women are pulling in an average of $168,000 a year. That’s not exactly poverty, however that’s still not enough when the men are making on average $200,400 per year. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but how many more of these studies have to be released before someone starts looking into these companies and hospitals and determining whether the blame for the disparity really falls on the women employees or if the human resources department hasn’t clearly determined that women just aren’t worth the money?

Alissa Henry is a freelance writer living in Columbus, OH. Follow her on Twitter @AlissaInPink or check out her blog: This Cannot Be My Life

Gender equality doesn’t appear to be much of a reality when it comes to pay inside the White House. The 2011 Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff shows that women earned about 18 percent less than men last year.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

“Female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).”

The author, Andrew Stiles, notes that some assumptions about an employees gender had to be made based on their name but says “when unclear, every effort was taken to determine the appropriate gender.”

This news is particularly damaging for two reasons. One, the democrats have been calling out republicans for their “war on women” in relation to the slew of restrictive reproductive proposals that have come from the party which means the GOP will no doubt see this as an opportunity to call dems out on the own type of war they’re waging.

The second issue is that when Barack Obama was just a presidential candidate in 2008, he was criticized for paying the women on his campaign staff less than the men, and less than his opponent John McCain paid his female staffers. Since he’s become president he has been rather outspoken about wanting to close the pay gap, although it appears that hasn’t happened just yet, despite issuing a statement on equal pay in 2010 that read:

“My Administration has already begun to address this problem. In my first week in office, I signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which helps women who face wage discrimination recover their lost wages, and in my State of the Union Address, I promised to crack down on violations of equal pay laws.”

It’s unclear whether some of the White House staff will come forth with lawsuits as a result of this report, but if President Obama doesn’t respond to this news soon, things will likely get very ugly.

Are you surprised women aren’t even earning an equal wage in the White House?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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While it’s still true that women earn less than men, currently between 70 and 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, there are places where the disparity is much more narrow. A report conducted by ForbesWoman shows which cities are the best paying cities for women.

San Jose, California makes it to the top of the list. Women here earn an average of $67,052 a year for full-time employment. The top jobs are in manufacturing, scientific and management services, education and healthcare.

California seems to do well in terms of compensating women; the number two city is San Francisco where women stand to make an average of $65,526.

“Metro areas like San Jose and San Francisco require highly skilled and trained labor, and recruit people with backgrounds in engineering and computer science, which are higher paying and have less discriminatory effect,” Susan McTiernan, a management professor at Quinnipiac University told Forbes.

According to McTiernan, the high cost of living in these two areas also helps raise the average professional salary. Number three on the list is Washington DC. While most women in San Jose and San Francisco find jobs in the private sector, 25 percent of the workers here find employment with the government and therefore, high-paying jobs with small gender wage gaps. Almost have of the women in this city have a bachelor’s degree or higher and the average salary for women is $64,779.

“Jobs here require the highest level of education, and many more women today are pursuing professional positions in law, medicine and academia,” McTiernan said.

Further down the list is number 10, Seattle, Washington, where large corporations such as Microsoft and Starbucks offer an average annual salary of $53,039. At number 12, Denver, Colorado’s growing financial services industry is helping women earn an average of $51,433 a year.

At the bottom of the list is McAllen, Texas, where women earn less than half of what women in San Jose make— $31,287 a year. Also lower on the list are cities where skilled labor is desired over a professional skillset such as El Paso, Texas, Youngstown, Ohio and Jackson, Mississippi.

The pay discrepancy between men and women in the workforce is an old story. We’ve heard it all before. But there may be a reason behind the injustice that you may not be aware of. Black Enterprise wrote a piece describing how women are viewed at work. While some women are seen as nurturers, their male counterparts are seen as go-getters. Naturally a go-getter is more favorable in this situation.

If you’re looking for a promotion or you just want to be respected for your talents, check out the list of things you can change about your work habits to make you stand out a critical player.

(CNN) – African-American workers continue to earn far less than whites, according to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Furthermore, little progress has been made over the years to close the income gap. At a per-capita income of $18,054 in 2008, African-American earnings were just 57.9% that of whites’ $28,502. That was a slight improvement over 2007 when black income was just 56.4%, but down from 2005, when it was 59.3%.

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