NDLI: Gender composition and wage gaps in the Canadian health policy research workforce in comparative perspective

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Gupta, Neeru Balcom, Sarah Ann Singh, Paramdeep
Abstract	Background Gendered challenges have been shown to persist among health practitioners in countries at all levels of development. Less is known about non-clinical professionals, that is, those who do not deliver services directly but are essential to health systems performance, such as health policy researchers. This national observational study examined gender occupational segregation and wage gaps in the Canadian health policy research workforce using a cross-domain comparative labour market analysis approach. Methods Sourcing data from the 2016 population census, we applied linear regression and Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition techniques to assess wage differentials by sex, traditional human capital measures (e.g., age, education, place of work), and social identity variables intersecting with gender (household head, childcare, migrant status) among health policy researchers aged 25–54. We compared the gender composition and wage gap with seven non-health policy and programme domains, as mapped under the national occupational classification by similarity in the types of work performed. Results The health policy research workforce (N = 19 955) was characterized by gender segregation: 74% women, compared with 58% women among non-health policy research occupations (N = 102 555). Women health policy researchers earned on average 4.8% (95% CI 1.5‒8.0%) less than men after adjusting for other professional and personal variables. This gap was wider than among education policy researchers with similar gender composition (75% women; adjusted wage gap of 2.6%). Wages among health policy researchers were 21.1% (95% CI 19.4‒22.8%) lower than their counterparts in the male-dominated economics policy domain, all else being equal. Overall, women’s earnings averaged 3.2% lower than men’s due to factors that remained unexplained by policy domain or other measured predictors. Conclusions This investigation found that the gender inequalities already widely seen among clinical practitioners are replicated among health policy researchers, potentially hindering the competitiveness of the health sector for attracting and retaining talent. Our findings suggest intersectoral actions are necessary to tackle wage gaps and devaluation of female-dominated health professions. Accountability for gender equity in health must extend to the professionals tasked with conducting equity-informative health policy research.
Related Links	https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12960-022-00774-5.pdf
Ending Page	14
Page Count	14
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14784491
DOI	10.1186/s12960-022-00774-5
Journal	Human Resources for Health
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	20
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2022-11-07
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Health Administration Social Policy Human Resource Management Human Resource Development Practice and Hospital Management Health Services Research Health workforce Health occupations Health policy research Professional labour markets Wage differentials Gender inequality Gender wage gap Statistics and numerical data
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Administration Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Journal Impact Factor	3.9/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	4.7/2023

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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