Gender, Racial and Immigrant Pay Gaps in Canadian Medicine topic of CHEPA seminar

“Gender, Racial and Immigrant Pay Gaps in Canadian Medicine” will be presented by Boris Kralj, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Economics, at a CHEPA seminar on Wednesday Nov. 15. It will be held in room CRL-B119 from 12:30 pm – 1:30 p.m and on Zoom. All are welcome.

Internationally, pay inequality between women and men has been a persistent phenomenon in society as a whole and is observed among physicians in Canada. However, understanding inequality in pay requires an intersectional lens, having been documented not just across genders but also between racialized and white physicians, and across racial and/or ethnic groups in society more broadly. This inequality interacts with issues such as systemic racism and features such as immigration and place of medical education/International Medical Graduate (IMG) status. Such gaps are increasingly important in the Canadian physician community. More broadly, outside of medicine, gender earnings gaps are well-studied and acknowledged by policymakers with discussions of remedies. However, this process is only starting in Canadian medicine.

Gender is the primary focus of the study this seminar draws from, but we will also identify and describe intersecting pay gaps related to visible minority status, immigration status, and foreign/domestic medical education. These pay gaps are even less studied and are also potential sources of inequity in Canadian medicine. The research looks at the effect of each demographic characteristic, and the set jointly, to elucidate how aspects of social identity such as race, immigration status and international training may intersect with gender to influence earnings. It also explores the influence of COVID-19.

If you’d like to attend virtually, please email ramsay@mcmaster.ca to obtain the Zoom link.