Who Saves the World? Girls.
According to the United States Census Bureau’s findings in 2019, over three-quarters of all health care jobs are held by women. Women have long dominated the health care scene as registered nurses and nurse aides, but over the past few decades the percentage of female physicians has grown significantly as well. One out of three full-time physicians or surgeons is a woman. Additionally, women lead in other less-visible sectors of health care in roles such as respiratory therapists, pharmacists, physician assistants, clinical and laboratory technicians, and phlebotomists.
This gender divide in health care is world wide. An article published last year by the World Health Organization shows that 70% of all health and social sector workers are women. The entire international industry of health care is dominated by women, but it is not run by women.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, women have born the brunt of the health care burden. Because women make up so much of the health care force, they have likely put in more hours, and possibly lost more lives. Women everywhere have made sacrifices at home to spend more time caring for and educating children, but those in health care have had to turn around and then make sacrifices at work.
Even though women shoulder so much of the work during the coronavirus pandemic, they are still paid less than their male counterparts. World wide, female health care workers earn 28% less than male counterparts. After adjusting for occupation and worked hours, the gap is still 11%.
So many industries actively work to hire more women and increase their ratio of women to overall employees. The health care industry is one of a few industries that already employs a large percentage of women. However, the health care industry as a whole has a long road ahead to eliminate the gender pay gap.
Health care companies need to change by working to eliminate the gender wage gap in this industry. They need to adequately represent women in their leadership. They need work as hard to care for their female employees as their female employees work to care for patients. Especially during this pandemic, they need to recognize that the job couldn’t get done without women.
Sources:
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/311314/WHO-HIS-HWF-Gender-WP1-2019.1-eng.pdf