Income and Employment Patterns Among Latina Physicians in the U.S.

Context: Other studies have identified a lack of equity in compensation for female physicians. However, past studies have inconsistently evaluated the intersection of physician race, ethnicity, and gender in pay equity. In some studies, no Latina physicians have been included. Latina physicians can bring added value for health care institutions, bilingual language skills, and cultural concordance for increasingly diverse patient populations.

Objective: We aimed to identify compensation patterns for Latina physicians in the United States, and compare these to non-Hispanic white male physicians.

Study Design, Dataset, and Analysis: This cross-sectional secondary analysis used weighted data from the 2018-2022 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). This 5-year data set is the latest available.

Population Studied: Individuals who self-reported their occupation as “physician” were included in this study. Further analysis was made of individuals within that population who self-identified their race/ethnicity as either non-Hispanic white (NHW) or Hispanic/Latino, regardless of race.

Outcome Measures: We compared their profiles on measures including age, type of practice, patient setting, total income, salary income, and hours worked per week.

Results: 62.8% of physicians were non-Hispanic White. 7.2% of the total physician population identified as Hispanic. Latina physicians represented 2.7% of all U.S. physicians. 43.6% of Latina physicians work in a hospital compared with 36.8% of NHW male physicians. 44.4% of Latina physicians and 36.5% of NHW male physicians work in the private setting. Latina physicians work comparable hours to their NHW male peers. Latina physicians earn a median total income of $144,216 while Latino male physicians earn $237,100. NHW female physicians earn $183,755 while NHW male physicians earn $270,228.

Conclusions: All physician groups in this analysis out-earn Latina physicians in median total income and wages regardless of hours worked. Our findings provide evidence on the gender-based gaps in physician income for an understudied subpopulation, and reinforce existing findings that women are earning less even when potentially confounding variables are assessed.