kudos to kirsteen and ian

[Guest mb003]

i have been a reader of the forum for awhile now, gaining sound advice from many participants...just came across this interesting article...by kirsteen and ian no less. congrats!

 

CMAJ: A force to contend with: The gender gap closes in Canadian medical schools

 

www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/9/1385

[Guest 15Sacha]

Wow, there are some really amazing people among us. Good work Kirsteen and Ian!!!! thanks for the read, mb003.

[Guest Ian Wong]

This was really Kirsteen's work that made that article happen. I just added in a few observations and details.

 

Ian

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Glad you enjoyed.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Ian Wong]

Interestingly enough, this article has already been picked up by the Calgary Herald. I think this spin-off article might have missed some of the big points, which include: 1) the fact that a large proportion of our current physicians are male, and many are 45+ years old (with males making up the vast majority of those physicians over the age of 65 years), and will therefore all be retiring in the next few decades; and 2) the incoming medical school classes have a much greater proportion of women, who have classically been more likely to enter primary care specialties and/or practice part-time/take maternity leave/retire earlier, etc.

 

If this is indeed the case, then we need to be admitting even more medical students, and training even more residents than anticipated to make up for this impending relative decrease in physician full-time equivalents. Or we need to figure out ways to increase each physician's productivity level while taking into account that female physicians may have different needs and requirements (in either their professional or personal lives) than male physicians.

 

Ian

 

www.canada.com/calgary/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=4e96857b-1bc6-4e77-aef6-97bebed6af62

 

Medical schools treat painful gender gap

'Altered behaviours' see more women want to be MDs

 

Mario Toneguzzi

Calgary Herald

April 27, 2004

 

The gender gap in Canadian medical schools no longer exists, according to an analysis released today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

 

The article says increasing numbers of women are entering medicine and women have gained equity in numbers at Canadian medical schools.

 

"It seems that altered behaviours of both sexes are contributing to this trend," the article says.

 

"Studies in the U.S. suggest that over the past 25 years, there has been a progressive decline in the proportion of men seeking post-secondary education at all levels and a decline in the percentage of men who seek education in either the medical profession or at the doctoral level.

 

"Conversely, early education promoting the achievements of girls has led to an increase in the number of women in university programs and interest among these female university students in pursuing medical education. Assuming that the U.S. evidence is generalizable to the Canadian educational environment, the trend of increasing numbers of female medical school matriculants is unlikely to change in the near future."

 

There was no one available Monday from the University of Calgary's faculty of medicine to comment on the report.

 

The percentage of women enrolled at the U of C medical school in 2003 was about 50 per cent. The University of Saskatchewan has the lowest percentage in the country at 43 per cent. The Universite de Laval in Quebec has the highest, at 74 per cent.

 

Donna Harker, manager of registration at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, said of the 5,853 physicians registered in the province as of the end of last month, 1,725 were women and 4,128 were men.

 

Harker said that over the last quarter, there was a net decrease of 16 male physicians while the number of females remained the same. The year-to-year change reflected a net gain of 91 females and 116 males.

 

The CMAJ article says that in 1959, women accounted for six per cent of medical school graduates compared with 44 per cent in 1989.

 

The most recent data from the Canadian Resident Matching Service shows 49.6 per cent of applicants were women. This year, the percentage was 50.1 per cent.

 

The full text of the report can be accessed on the CMAJ website at http://www.cmaj.ca.

 

The most recent Canadian medical school classes have a range of 43 per cent to 74 per cent women (mean 58 per cent) compared with a range of 26 per cent to 57 per cent men (mean 42 per cent).

 

The analysis states that enrolment of women in western and Prairie medical schools falls below the national average.

 

The analysis says the need for doctors will grow as a result of the aging population and the development of new technologies that will increase the number and intensity of medical services that are sought.

[Guest extrachromasome]

"The most recent Canadian medical school classes have a range of 43%–74% women (mean 58%), compared with a range of 26%–57% men (mean 42%). The gender gap in medical schools no longer exists. "

 

The question has to be asked: If the ratio is 58%/42%, averaged across all medical schools in Canada, how is that there is no gender gap?

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there extrachromosome,

 

The question has to be asked: If the ratio is 58%/42%, averaged across all medical schools in Canada, how is that there is no gender gap?

There is a gender gap, but it is the opposite of that which existed previously--one where the ratio of men to women was larger.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest chemgirl]

Awesome, congrats on the publication, great article!

[Guest Dafunk]

Congrats, Thought the article was great as well.

 

Dafunk

[Guest Ian Wong]

There's an article in today's Globe and Mail discussing the large increase in women in the Canadian and US university population. The article notes that nearly 60% of university students in Canada are women. Furthermore, the article notes that women tend to see a much larger increase in their income if they have a Bachelor's degree, while the difference in income for men with and without a Bachelor's degree is not nearly as significant.

 

Ian

 

www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040430.wwomen01/BNStory/Front/

 

Higher education pays off for women, U.S. study reveals

 

By CAROLINE ALPHONSO

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

 

For years, university administrators have been scratching their heads over why female students are flooding into higher education. A U.S. researcher says she may have the answer — a finding Canadian academics say also holds water at institutions here.

 

It's the money, said Laura Perna, an assistant professor of educational policy and leadership at the University of Maryland.

 

Young women are more motivated to do well in university and college than men because they know there is an immediate economic benefit, Prof. Perna found.

 

Drawing on data from a U.S. Department of Education survey of more than 9,000 Americans who graduated from high school in 1992 and were interviewed occasionally until 2000, Prof. Perna found that the incomes of women with a bachelor's degree were 24 per cent higher than those of women with only a high-school diploma. Young men had no significant wage benefit from higher education, she said in an interview.

 

"This suggests that the greater rates of college enrolment and degree attainment for women than for men may make sense. These may be rational decisions that people are making," said Prof. Perna, who recently presented her findings at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting in San Diego.

 

She found that occupations dominated by men with only high-school diplomas, such as skilled blue-collar work, pay much better than the jobs that women without university degrees tend to have. Economics professors in Canada say this is also true in this country.

 

Prof. Perna said that women are likely calculating how they would perform in the job market with only a high-school diploma. The bleak outlook is motivating them to attend university.

 

In Canada, officials find that female students are also taking over the university landscape.

 

Women, on average, make up nearly 60 per cent of the undergraduate population, according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. And in professional programs, such as medicine and law, their numbers are almost equal to those of men.

 

Arthur Sweetman, an associate professor of policy studies at Queen's University in Kingston, has found that women with bachelor's degrees earn 50 to 80 per cent more a year than those with only a high-school diploma. Men with bachelor's degrees, on the other hand, earn around 25 to 30 per cent more annually than men with only high-school diplomas.

 

This is telling, Prof. Sweetman said.

 

"What women do is they look around and they say, 'With a high-school diploma, what can I do?' And they notice that the opportunities for women with only a high-school diploma are much worse than the opportunities for men with a high-school diploma," Prof. Sweetman said.

 

Craig Riddell, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia, echoes these sentiments.

 

His research, which has been published in the Canadian Journal of Economics, found that the rate of return for a university degree or college diploma is 9 per cent for women and only around 6 per cent for men, after inflation and taxes.

 

Prof. Riddell said this is not because wages are higher for educated women than educated men. Rather the gap in pay for less-educated women and those who attain a higher education is larger compared to men in those same groups.

 

"The higher rate of return in Canada has been there for a while, and we know for the last decade enrolment has been growing more rapidly among women than among men. An economist would tell you that incentives matter and people are responding to the incentives," Prof. Riddell said. "For women, it pays a lot more to get a higher education than it does for men."